38-From Empty Room to First Classroom
When I first stepped into the new room with my own key,
it was… clean.
Clean, but undeniably old.
The walls carried the faint memory of someone else’s life.
The flooring had a few scratches, the kind you don’t notice in photos but can feel under your feet.
But this was all I had.
And this was where it had to begin.
There was no counter.
No knives.
No guests.
Just a bare room and a lease with my name on it.
Still, I felt strangely calm.
“You don’t need the perfect start,” I told myself.
“You just need a real one.”
In theory, I could have obsessed over the details endlessly:
custom-built counters, designer lighting, brand-new appliances.
But I knew better.
I had lived through the pandemic.
I knew what it meant to stretch every yen.
I didn’t buy a new rice cooker.
I decided to use the one from my own kitchen.
For now, that was enough.
I needed a table.
And I needed chairs.
Not perfect ones.
Just… present ones.
So I opened Craigslist.
I scrolled through listings for worn-out office furniture, scratched dining tables.
I didn’t search for “beautiful”.
Once I found a set that seemed workable, I rented a small van,
drove across the city,
and picked them up myself.
And when I placed them in the room—
that bare, echoing space suddenly changed.
It started to feel less like an empty apartment,
and more like… the outline of a classroom.