I write this entry at the risk of exposing myself for the sheltered, green, spoiled kid I am—but there’s no better place than the internet to air your most vulnerable laundry, right?

I’m 25, going on 26. Until now, my list of “former residences” on various applications has included my childhood home, my alma mater, an alligator-haunted apartment, and my parents’ home in Florida. (I’ve technically lived in a few other places, including a cold stone bench at a Marseilles train station for one night…but we won’t go there.) With the exception of that apartment occupied during my junior year of college and the little bungalow Ali and I lived in for a couple months this summer, I’ve lived under a roof with mom and dad (and now mom- and dad-in-law) for the majority of my little life.

The exceptions were hardly exceptions. The apartment was a cozy, insulated domestic experience where Daddy picked up the rent tab every month and I nary had a concern about “utilities” and other such grown-up words. The newlywed cottage in the farmlands of Florida this summer was another tame living arrangement—we paid a small check each month to the college nurse and her handyman husband to live in their carpeted garage.

All this to say, I’ve really never had to be a responsible adult when it comes to renting (let alone owning) any kind of home; and consequently, I’ve never had to worry about all the various appendages of responsibility that go along with being a tenant.

That all changed today. Alison and I made a Mephistophelean bargain with a landlord (a Mr. Scratch) for a two-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of Pittsburgh. We’re pretty excited about the place—the first floor of an older, Victorian-style house with wood floors and a genuinely creepy basement—and we’re both eager to establish some married, big kid independence in a hip part of town.

The fact is, I’m taking a completely new plunge. I’m doing something a lot my peers did when they left home after high school. (I realize it’s becoming much more common for us twenty-somethings to continue roosting in our home nest, but that’s not a statistic I’m particularly proud of contributing to.)

Despite a few apprehensions and a little intimidation, I’m quite ready to join the world of big kids and grown-ups who don’t have to discreetly exit through the back door whenever Mom has a “ladies day” at the house. And I’m ecstatic to feather my own little nest (with lots of books, film scores, and internet cables, no doubt) for my adorable wife, and any guests who want to visit the coolest town at the intersection of two rivers.

There came a day when Peter Pan had to fly his Neverland coop and sign a lease on an overpriced London flat. And the reason’s name was Wendy Moira Angela Darling.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s grown-up time.