Ten years ago, my home held the shape of me. Mismatched mugs collected from places I’d loved, books stacked in teetering towers, paintings leaned against walls, waiting for the right moment to be hung. There were hand-me-down chairs with stories in their worn arms, a chipped bowl from my grandmother’s kitchen, and a sense—however unkempt—that this space belonged to me, and I to it.
Now, I look around and see something curated, a place arranged for the gaze of others rather than the comfort of self. Smooth, neutral tones. Shelves styled just so. Objects chosen not for the weight of their history but for how well they align with an ever-shifting standard. The colours have drained, the oddities tucked away, and with them, something of my own texture has faded too.
It happened so gradually I barely noticed. A new throw pillow here, a swap of furniture there, a quiet clearing of the clutter—until one day, the soul of the space had slipped away, like a tide pulling back without my permission. I had followed the aesthetics, let the images of perfection seep into my bones, and in doing so, lost the imperfection that made it mine.
But homes, like selves, are not meant to be static. They are meant to be lived in, to shift and fray and gather pieces of the years we inhabit them. And so, I wonder—how do I reclaim that? Not in a grand undoing, but in the slow, deliberate act of filling my space again with memory, with warmth, with the odd and the beloved. A return, not just to a home that feels like me, but to the part of myself I allowed to slip away.