Last Tuesday, I was standing in my kitchen with my morning coffee. (My husband makes it for me every day, bless him.)
I wiped down the counter. It took about ten seconds, because there was nothing on it.
No stack of mail. No bowl of odds and ends. No appliances I use twice a year.
Just a clean, empty counter.
And I felt so happy. Silly happy. Standing there in my robe, I thought, this is the nicest thing in my whole house.
Then I laughed. Because that is not what I would have said at 25.
At 25, I wanted a bigger house. A fuller closet. A china cabinet packed with matching dishes. More of everything.
I thought that was what a good life looked like.
Now I’m in my 60s. And somewhere along the way, after a lot of decluttering, my idea of luxury turned upside down.
So when did luxury start meaning less? For me, it happened slowly, one cleared drawer at a time.
Let me show you what I mean.
What Luxury Used to Mean
When we were young, having MORE felt like a success.
We saved up for the matching bedroom set. The kind with the big dresser, two nightstands, and a mirror it took two people to hang.
We had a formal dining room. We used it on Thanksgiving and Christmas. The rest of the year, it held the mail.
I had a china cabinet full of dishes. Most of them never touched food.
And we kept moving to bigger houses with more rooms to fill. So we filled them.
I’m not making fun of my younger self. She worked hard for those things. They made her proud, and that was real.
My husband still thinks this way about his garage. (It’s his kingdom, and I’ve made my peace with that.)
But for me, something changed after 60.