A new year is not only a time to recommit to exercise more, lose weight and, yes, declutter our homes, but a time of personal reflection, which I have been doing a lot lately. After two decades of writing this weekly column, I’m making a change and stepping away. So please indulge me once more, as I wax and pine in this final dispatch.
I am humbled to have been entrusted with many of your domestic decisions, including whether your remodeled living room needs a fireplace, how soon is it okay to remodel after losing a spouse and what to do with grandma’s beloved Lladro collection.
I am grateful to the many experts — the interior designers, architects, painters, carpenters, stone masons, upholsterers, wineglass enthusiasts, textile experts, color consultants, organizers, appraisers and more — who gave me master classes in their professions, generously sharing their expertise, so I could share it with you.
I am profoundly appreciative of the readers who educated me, including the legions of engineers who quickly set me straight on the difference between concrete and cement, words, I learned, that are not interchangeable. I have learned so much from you.
We’ve had a good run. We’ve shared some laughs. When I started this column, my children were in grade school. I was living in the Rocky Mountains, and I did not need to color my hair or wear glasses. Today, my daughters are both in professional careers and married. One has a baby. I live in Florida. Combatting the gray and having glasses stashed in every room and pocket are just two of many reminders that time is going by.
Along the way, we’ve gone through multiple moves (10 in 20 years, which exhausts me to think about), the downsizing of family homes, divorce, remarriage, remodels, more remodels, celebrations, loss, reinvention and many bottles of Advil.
Newspapers have changed, readership has changed, and I have changed. As Oprah said, when she ended her 25-year-long TV show, “I feel it in my bones.” Though her bank account is much larger than mine, our bone-deep feelings are the same. It’s time.
Today, a new generation of fantastically entertaining, smart and creative influencers, Instagrammers and YouTubers are adding fresh perspectives to the field of home design. I want to cede the floor.
What will I do instead? I have a day job — I lead a patient advocacy nonprofit that deserves more of my time. I will get my weekends back and spend more time traveling with my husband and seeing my new grandbaby without having to pack my laptop. And I have a new book in mind, my eighth.
Although I will no longer be filing a weekly column, I am not planning to stop voicing my unsolicited opinions on home design, gracious living and rightsizing through my books and media and podcast interviews. You can tune in at www.marnijameson.com and subscribe to my missives there.
This isn’t an ending, but rather a bittersweet beginning. I will miss this. However, as I launch my next chapter, I leave you for now with these thoughts:
Be you: Don’t decorate for anyone else. Create a home that reflects your personality, your life, your heritage and your interests as beautifully as possible.
Seek out the fewer and better: Surround yourself with quality, not quantity. This holds true for people as well as material goods.
Be intentional: To live beautifully, you have to work at it, make an ongoing effort. You have to both care and try. You get to live once. Honor the act.
Entertain: Don’t wait until your house is perfect to have guests over. Connecting with others is the fabric and soul of life. Open your home and heart often to engage with family, neighbors, friends, and co-workers.
Take stock: Letting go, whether of stuff or obligations (like this column) at the right time helps not only simplify your life but makes room for what else matters. Make editing your life an ongoing process.
Evolve: Life changes. Have the courage to shed. Let go of what no longer serves, fulfills or enriches you. Hanging onto the past robs us not only of the present but the potential for a better future.
Live well.