Living alone is actually like the first time you start cycling, staggering, the steering wheel tilting, just waiting to fall. But if you get through the first few rounds, people suddenly realize, it turns out you can also balance yourself.
You work in media, used to live in a family of four generations. There is always a voice in the house, even sometimes just a cough and someone cares and asks.
By the age of thirty-five, you move to a small apartment living alone.
Living alone forces people to re-learn very basic things. From changing light bulbs, paying electricity bills, to cooking a decent meal instead of eating bread or vermicelli, pho. But the most difficult thing about living alone is not cooking or washing clothes but facing silence.
At that time, many people discover that in their heads there are many different voices from worry, suspicion, self-blame to analysis, scrutiny, like a group of commentators always ready to analyze all your mistakes.
A female accountant once said that in the first week of living alone, she turned on the TV all day just to make noise to reduce noise. Not to watch, just to hear someone talk. But then people gradually got used to it.
After a few months, she started to like quiet mornings, making coffee alone. No one competed for the bathroom. No one asked meaningless questions like: "What to eat today?
She said that feeling was like the first time having a really wide desk. On the desk you can scatter randomly, but that's your freedom.
Actually, standing firm is simply learning to take care of yourself. Eating properly. Getting enough sleep. Working moderately. Knowing when to go out to meet friends.
Many of us are used to living based on other people's schedules. When those schedules disappear, we feel like a boat without an anchor.
But actually that boat still has engines. It's just that we rarely drive ourselves before.
Living alone, if viewed in a positive direction, is like a compulsory course on maturity. It teaches people two things: first, to take care of themselves, and second, to understand that the presence of others in their lives is a gift, not something obvious.
One day, when friends visit, when relatives come to dinner, the small house suddenly becomes warmer than usual. Not because the house changes. But because the people living in it have learned how to stand firm alone. Then, the presence of others in life will no longer be a crutch to support, but become much more beautiful. It is companionship.
