I was a frazzled mother who was living life like everyone else, busy, grumpy, tired, and unhealthy. Shopping, sugar, and long sessions of being engrossed in a screen is how I escaped. I learned about minimalisim and my life has started to take a turn for the better. Come with me on my journey to the simple life.
photo: a peony in my sister-in-law's backyard. Taken summer 2017
I am a frazzled busy mother who didn't ever seem to have time to play with her kids. I was too exhausted at the end of the day to even talk with my husband. I would plop down on my bed and slide into the oblivious world of my ipad, emerge when I felt like it was time to go to sleep. That ipad or 'me' time was never enough. I woke up dreading the tasks before me; running to the grocery store, going to Costco for supplies, buying clothes for me and my family, cooking, cleaning, taking care of my children, house, husband, and sometimes, myself. My state of exhaustion was permanent.
“If you really want to change something, the only way to do it is to start changing this very moment. There’s really no tomorrow, and no next week to look forward to. Once tomorrow comes, it’s going to be today. A year from now will be today when the time comes. Everything is in the now.” ― Fumio Sasaki, Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism
After arguing with my husband and kids all day long, I decided something had to change. I'd tried organizing, coming up with a plan to keep our house clean, blaming myself that I was too lazy, comparing myself to others. None of it worked (obviously). My husband introduced me to minimalism, at first. I decided I'd try it but never really embraced it. My tipping point was Fumio Sasaki's book Goodbye, Things. His book resonated with me. I loved how he described how his things are what made him unhappy. His "silent to do list" made me realize that I have too much stuff. All that stuff was making me frazzled and exhausted. Slowly but surely, our family has started on a journey to get rid of all of the things we don't need or use. We've started making sure we found things that made us happy everyday. We started becoming a family and doing things togther as a family. My hubby got rid of facebook (I'm not quite there yet). I stopped eating sugar. I find, even though my journey has just begun, I am feeling happier. I started to enjoy cleaning 😲! I woke up each day with a purpose. I'm not going to say my life is perfect, far from it, but it's better.