What I’ve been craving for that last few years, is simpleness. I hoped that, arranging my days around the easy flow of every day life and home work I eventually would learn to like it, become good at it. In a way, that’s the case. In many others, it has been disappointing.
It took me a while to realize that simple life is not the same as choosing minimalism. Reading blogs and articles, getting a peek into other people’s lives was inspiring. But something didn’t feel right. While I hoped to introduce that same household cosiness, I couldn’t help but finding a lot of it not being exactly my taste.
I looked at the toy collection of my son, which I completely dragged into the house, knowing that it was too much, but enjoying to offer him something new (to him – as I buy a lot second hand). Same thing for his garderobe. That boy has a lot of clothes, even if I can honestly say he wears all of them on a regular basis. My paper stash, my cupboard and fridge filled with fresh food, and many convenient desserts. Cookies, non of them home baked. Fallen out of the habit to bake bread. A vegetable garden that I did not tend well.
A house that I could have organized completely in the last three months. I did a lot of it, but left a lot like it was. Even the room I completely cleaned out already looked cluttered (although I know there is hardly any random stuff around anymore there).
It’s not just how I imagined simple. I imagined myself playing with my son by now, cooking and baking together, doing arts and crafts, telling tales and going outside all the time. Those things do happen, but they’re not the center of my days. I do cook from scratch, but my husband does the cleaning up. Soon I will be working outside of the home again, and I wonder what on earth I have done with my days the last few weeks. It’s hard not to get dragged down by that idea.
Maybe simpleness is a mindset. A definition one has to figure out for himself. Maybe my simple is not your simple. And maybe comparison is a mood killer. As a matter of fact, I know it is. I just have not applied it to this struggle.
I might just have found my word for 2016.
Songs of Home 
(i love your posts)