Happy at Home has one goal: Empower women to find joy and contentment in the home they live in right now.
If joy is the last word you would use to describe how you currently feel in your home, I hear you, and I want to reassure you that it is possible. I get that your current home, be it a starter house, an older home, or an apartment, may not be your dream home. It’s not the home where you picture entertaining friends or starting a family. Besides, you know it’s not forever, so you don’t feel inspired to decorate, or address those boxes in the closet, or figure out how to deal with the piles of mail your husband keeps leaving on the kitchen counter…
I understand. When you work full time, it’s challenging to muster up the energy and take the time to address an area that isn’t even that big of a problem yet. Sure, getting dressed most mornings takes so long you have no time to eat breakfast, and you’ve been postponing your housewarming party for two years because your home’s not “ready,” but that doesn’t mean your life is literally falling apart, does it? Shouldn’t you have figured this #adulting thing out by now?
Nobody tells you how hard running a household while working full time is (not to mention if you have children to keep alive too! my god, the pressure!). And while we’re not the first generation of women to manage households while working full time, we are the first ones who have their friends’ (and very talented #influencers’) highlight reels in our handbags at all times. It’s pretty hard not to look; it’s damn near impossible not to compare.
And while Melissa’s showing off her impeccable farmhouse kitchen on Instagram, you’re questioning the point of clearing off the kitchen counter. Even when it’s clean, it looks nowhere as nice as Melissa’s, so what’s the point?
YOU. YOU ARE THE POINT.
Please hear me: Your worthiness does not come from the things you own or where you live.
Let go of all that, and take back the reins of your own life. The objective is to be conscious of and intentional about everything you own.
I’ve witnessed first hand the truly transformative power of decluttering items that no longer serve me. And again, it’s not about what or how much I discarded; it’s about the process of becoming aware of what I owned, confronting my complicated feelings, and choosing how I wanted to feel moving forward. It’s the entire reason I’m here today.
Ok, I know what you’re thinking. I’m betting your clutter “isn’t that bad”, and that your house is “not that messy”. That’s not the point.
The point is, if you don’t feel happy when you walk into your house, it’s highly likely that there are postponed decisions and unconfronted feelings hiding there in the form of belongings. And it’s only by working through those belongings and deciding which ones serve you and which ones don’t that you can free yourself from the emotional weight they have on you.
Plus, the fewer things you own, the easier your home is to maintain. Win win.
Please let me be clear: I’m not a minimalist. I love being prepared for off-the-wall situations life throws my way, I love visual abundance, and I love seeing things that make me happy. I don’t love surrounding myself with things that make me feel guilty or frustrated or unworthy. And I hate not being able to find something when I need it! I’m not perfect: This is a lifelong struggle for me, so I get your resistance. If I hadn’t undergone a significant personal transformation from clearing out things that weighed me down, I wouldn’t be writing this today.
The rest of it — the organizing, the systems, the routines — is easy. The hard part is changing how you think about stuff in the first place. The lessons you learn from the decluttering process will serve you so well in your future stages of life. My goal is to help you take back control now, while you can find the time and the energy to work through it. You may feel unmotivated now, but it only gets more complicated the older you get.
Do future you — and, more importantly, present you — a favor, and make your home a priority now.