Column: Fish fingers, my sister's snoring - it's good to be home

Space is a funny thing. Much like teeth, hair and sanity you don't realise how much you like it until it's  gone, with no sign of return.
I'm used to small spaces. I lived in a city apartment in which getting to my hobbit-sized window from the door was a minimum seven-stage obstacle course involving shoes, clothes, cutlery, books, non-refrigerator-based food, a George Foreman  (grill version), any other electronics likely to attract the fluttering fingers of my  ex-con flatmate and  thumb tacks that are probably still awaiting their next barefooted victim. I rarely made it to the window.
In my  high school days I used to complain that it wasn't fair my room at home was the size of a modest walk-in wardrobe (true)  and shared with a tribe of  stubborn ants (true but also mostly my fault). It never got the sun, had no carpet and smelt  of rest-homes ever since an unfortunate incident with lavender bath oils. I have never missed that bedroom more.
In a state of naïve self-indulgence I had assumed I would live a sitcom-like existence in which I would return from Auckland at my convenience to a perfectly preserved room; belongings untouched, certificates framed, mounted and polished,  a shrine to my legacy. As it turns out there was no room for my legacy, and sitcoms are a crock.
On the day  I moved out of home I received a text informing me my room had been emptied, repainted and re-inhabited by my brother.  Legacy shmegacy. This was easy  to deal with at uni. At least I could simmer in bitterness in my own private hobbit hole.
These days my bitterness must be shared with my sister and silence  after 9.30pm. Getting top bunk is a small compensation. The  situation reminds me of a time when I couldn't wait to get out of home. 1998, 7  years old and desperate for freedom, late-night TV and parents that advocated an all peanut butter diet, I put on every item of clothing I owned, threw a carrot in a bread bag and relocated to the gully  behind our house.
Far enough to create panic but close enough for a kindly pair of childless adults with lots of money, a plasma screen and a peanut butter friendly outlook on life to stumble across me on their evening bush walk. Or so I thought.
Roughly 20 minutes into my journey of independence it started to rain. Heavily. An  bath mat swiped from the clothes line proved leakier than I'd expected. My parents were talking unusually loudly through the open window about having fish fingers for dinner. Fish fingers were almost as good as peanut butter. I retreated to the house dripping and demanding extra fish fingers for my trauma.
The  fiasco was a classic case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone-type irony and while I could a) invest in one of those terrifying box on wheel type arrangements for $50 p/week or b) set up a  more durable bath mat fortress in the gully, neither of these involve free food, an internet connection or the melodic tones of my sister's snoring.
The next three months are going to be eventful. Sharing living space has already resulted in an unwelcome change to my daily rituals - no more bed-based midnight snacks, no more  sleep-ins and definitely no more 3am Concert Radio jams.  Then again, I get as many fish fingers as I want, the snoring's actually quite peaceful ... and the gully's always just around the corner. It's good to be home.