To Be Happy at Home

“To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition”

• Samuel Johnson, November 10, 1750 issue of The Rambler

I don’t like to think about Covid times. I guess in a way I had it extra hard, because I was coming off a hip injury and then a hip surgery and recovery that already kept me limited to home for several years. In 2019, I was just starting to feel like myself again. Then the Covid pandemic hit and it felt like God was playing some cruel joke, limiting me to staying home again. (I wrote about this in Being Alone).

Now I’m home a lot of the time once again, but for a very different reason – I’m taking care of my baby. And I finally feel like I know what it feels like to be happy at home.

I was happy at home growing up, of course, but once I moved out and began to create my own home, I found it very hard. I could create my own structure and routines according to my own preferences, but I found I really wasn’t very good at it. I never arrived at a system I could stick to for arranging dishes in my cupboards or food in my pantry. I decorated my home in a way I loved, but the functional side of things was a struggle for me (my husband laughs at me and tells me I “lived like a bachelor.”) It turns out that a lot of it was decision paralysis, and when someone else that I live with sets things up a certain way, I can just stick to that. But I don’t take myself seriously enough to stick to a system I come up with, because I know I can always change it. I indulge my freedom to do whatever a bit too much!

Part of what makes me happy at home now is that I have other people to do things for. Somehow I didn’t care enough about a clean house to clean for myself alone. I’m still not the most organized, clean person, but I’m much more motivated to try, to make life more pleasant for the people around me (my husband and my baby).

And, you know, I always wanted to be more happy at home when I was single. We all do spend quite a bit of time at home. In the quote I shared above, Samuel Johnson goes on to explain that even those in public life spend quite a bit of their time at home, and it is really at home where everyone can truly be themselves. This is our reward for our hard work – to come home and relax and be ourselves. And there is truth to this. If home is uncomfortable, life is very hard because there’s no sanctuary to retreat to at the end of the day.

C.S. Lewis quotes Johnson and goes on to say, ” As long as we are thinking only of natural values we must say that the sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal, or two friends talking over a pint of beer, or a man alone reading a book that interests him; and that all economics, politics, laws, armies, and institutions, save in so far as they prolong and multiply such scenes, are a mere ploughing the sand and sowing the ocean, a meaningless vanity and vexation of spirit.” (“Membership,” in The Weight of Glory)

We’re not all happy at home, and sometimes we lose the power to create happiness in our homes. But now that I have been blessed to finally experience the joy of being at home and all the pleasures I can experience there with my baby, I see the power in it.

And what if you struggle to be happy at home? You can make changes, but I think there’s only so much you can do. For me, the changes that made me happy at home was having people to share life at home with. It’s not just my family, but also the friends and supports who are around to help with this big transition to life with a child. If you don’t have a support system around you, life will be harder in many ways. Singles often “go out” for a reason, to be where the people are. And maybe to, like me, get away from the decision paralysis and resulting chaotic order at home.

That said, being happy at home is ultimately about the simple things. It’s about being comfortable with yourself, enough to be quiet and still with yourself for at least some amount of time. It’s about having a few things you really love and value around you. It’s about little rituals, like making your morning cup of coffee or the way you like to fold your laundry. All these little details of life build up into what your life ultimately is.

Anyway, don’t lose hope that it’s possible to find happiness at home! It might just take time, and some life changes.

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