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Elina Furman, author, lecturer, and life skills expert, has written and co-written over 20 books, including The Everything After College Book and Generation, Inc.: The 100 Best Businesses for Young Entrepreneurs. She has appeared on dozens of television and radio shows, including The Today Show, Good Morning America, CNNfn’s Entrepreneurs Only, New York Weekend Today, Geraldo at Large, and Good Day Philadelphia, and her books have been featured in newspapers and magazines, such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fortune, The Washington Post, USA Today, Cosmopolitan, Newsweek, Money, and Entertainment Weekly.
MY TALE OF WOE: Sad, but true...
It all started when I graduated college. With no job and no desire to learn the art of making mocha lattes at the local Starbucks, I moved back with my family home to Highland Park, Illinois. And before you start picturing my parents as this happy wonderful couple, let me interject by telling you that no, we weren’t the picture of domestic bliss. My parents were in the middle of a difficult divorce. So there we all were -- me, my soon-to-be divorced parents, and my older sister. Talk about dysfunction!
As soon as the house was sold, my mom, sister and I packed up and we were off to move into our new condo in Chicago. You might ask why I would be so quick to move back in with my mother and sister after being stuck for so long together. Well, my mom and I have always been close and I was very worried about her living on her own. As much as I thought that she would be scared living by herself, I realized I was even more nervous, and the same was probably true of my sister. So all three of us set off on the new adventure; more roommates and friends by now than nagging family members. Besides, I'm Russian, so I always had that immigrant value thing where everyone lives together until they die or get married.
It’s not like anyone was supporting me financially, either. The first book I wrote with my sister, The Everything After College Book, led to many other things, and finally the two of us were able to quit our day jobs and work full-time as authors and consultants. Fast forward five years later...life went from great to not so good. Our move from Chicago to New York didn't go as planned, our 3-bedroom condo turned into a small 2-bedroom apartment with no view (unless you consider a neon PARKING sign scenic), the writing stuff started dwindling, and my 7-year relationship ended two days before Sept. 11. A little sympathy here, people! I was agitated, depressed, and wondering how it was that at 29 years old I was still living with my mother and sister. ARGGHHH!
Well, after much back and forth and a million crazy schemes later, I finally moved out.
After living in a 2-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side with my mother and sister for 4 years, I now live a block away in a nice building. My sister was the first to go after she found an affordable, cute studio 10 blocks away, and after we sold the condo, my mother moved out as well, into a building next door to my sister's. Suffice it to say, we still see other all the time. But now because we want to, not because we have to.
My new place t is great. Our old apartment was okay, but it was on the third floor, so all I could ever see was a bright neon "parking sign." I remember feeling completely trapped without any privacy -- I literally had no view; no view of the future or of where I was going. I finally got out when I met my boyfriend and after a brief stint with him in Boston we moved back to NYC.
Since I now live with my boyfriend -- who works all day -- I pretty much have the new one-bedroom apartment all to myself, which is a huge luxury in terms of privacy and breathing space. In my old place, I used to write on my bed, and now I have my own home office. I also take my laptop up to the roof deck and write out there.
I can still see the old building where I used to live with my mother and sister from my new 15th floor window. But even though I'm just a block away, it feels like a complete world apart.
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