一人暮らしを始めて

When I entered university, I left my parents' home and started living alone. At first I was very excited about a free life in which no one said anything to me.

But once I actually started living, there were many more difficult things than I had imagined. Cooking, laundry, cleaning: I have to do all of it myself. On days when I was tired from class or my part-time job, my room gradually got messier.

At night, alone in the quiet room, I sometimes felt lonely. The voices of my family, which I had taken for granted when I lived at home, suddenly felt dear to me.

What troubled me most was meals. Trying to save money, I ate the same things every day, and my health got worse. I never thought that thinking about nutritional balance would be this hard.

When you live alone, managing money is also important. There is money that must be paid every month, like rent, electricity, and gas. I came to think carefully myself about how to use the money I earned from my job. I learned firsthand that if you waste money, you struggle at the end of the month.

At times like that, an upperclassman living in the next room often spoke to me. As I learned simple recipes from him and went shopping at the supermarket together, I gradually got used to the life. Bit by bit, I gained confidence that I could manage on my own.

Now, half a year after starting to live alone, I feel my family's kindness far more than before. The next time I go home, I want to say "thank you" to my mother, who used to make my meals every day as if it were nothing.