At some point in the near future me and my brother are going to be getting our own home. It will be some kind of apartment/flat either in our current town or some nearby town/city. What that means is for the first ever time we’ll be living on our own and managing our own affairs and that means we have much to learn in the run up towards it.
Currently at home I have several chores or activities that I choose to do that include hoovering the upstairs rooms, washing up the cutlery, utensils and dishes, doing the gardening in both the front and back gardens of the current house and cooking dinner for me and my brother. I actually just finished doing the back and front gardens today to make them look neat again, I have already done the back garden three times so far, but it doesn’t take long during the Summer before the weeds and vines start quickly creeping back up/out again.
But I will also need to learn other jobs such as more wide-scale cleaning of floors and surfaces using cleaning products and I have already been shown how to do the washing of clothes and towels in the washing machine, although I may need to be shown again how to do it when we do get our new place as the washing machine would likely be different. I’d also need to collect the washing after it is done and hang it up about the place to dry, so on radiators or just hung from certain areas in a room like currently.
Other things I’ll also need to learn and get used to doing are the shopping, specifically I’ll learn about online shopping but I’d also need to familiarize myself with nearby shops that I can pop to from time to time in-case there are some little things we may sometimes need to pick up, it will also be important to know the local areas and what’s where if we do end up moving to another nearby town. Many of these things I am talking about now are actually things any young person first moving into their own place needs to learn and not specifically just people with Autism or other learning disabilities, although we may need a bit of extra help, explanation and patience to get the hang of it and understand.
Me and my brother will be getting a social worker who shall be helping us get used to many of these things for a number of weeks until we no longer need to the support once we do eventually get the hang of what we need to do.
There are as well other important things we’ll need to learn such as budgeting our money and learning about paying for the TV license and council tax and the electric, gas and water bills and also the broadband and mobile phone bills, it is all a lot to take into account and keep track of. I know I will get the hang of these things eventually but it is always scary for the first time. I will also eventually aiming to get a job as well to earn some extra money, most likely at first, I’ll get some experience from volunteering jobs before moving on to trying to find paid work, it will be important to build my CV a bit first.
I will also definitely be learning how to drive at some point but before then I will probably have to learn about using public transport such as buses or trains to get to places, such as to visit a family member from time to time or to get to a job, at least until I learn how to drive and can then afford to obtain a car to drive. So, learning about what bus stops or train stations to go to, how to understand timetables, and how to pay and what to pay and so on. And after learning to drive and getting my vehicle I’ll need to learn all about road tax, paying for petrol/diesel, the MOT and any possible servicing and so on… there is a lot to learn! It’s going to be a long road, but at least I will eventually learn. It should be exciting to feel like I’m finally getting somewhere!
And of course, I plan to keep this blog going as I have lots of plans for its future and lots of hopes and aspirations for it! I will obviously also use this blog to record down my independent journey as it progresses, give my points of view, my opinions, how I should or should not have done it, what I learned, my suggestions to others when they reach that point etc.
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