Magazine
Living in my big house is much more fun than in an apartment building. Somehow those copy-paste like buildings just became prevalent and boring. There are many in Broomfield. Last time a friend invited me to his home. The whole area was covered by the same looking apartments. Grey, yellow, blue, orange. You got lost very easily. I have no idea what people living in those places feel, but to me it just made exhausting life more daunting, I think.
Where I’m living is on Pine street, two blocks away from downtown Pearl street mall. It’s also in the Mapleton Hill historic district. Every house in the neighborhood is different. Some are in white, some have red bricks, some are surrounded by lawns. Walking along the street, you never feel boring, since every two steps or three brings you a new design, a house with different styles. I’ve been living here for a long time, but I could always find something new in them. A snow storm is a perfect match to those red-brick houses. Or the white flowers I don’t know the name are blooming in front of the blue house, and shining under the spring’s sunlight.
I like decorating my home, and I’ve been looking on the Internet or design magazines to find ideas. I’m not an expert on this topic, but I’ve always been interested in making my home beautiful and neat. One thing I noticed after I’ve browsed tons of designs of home is that they are not actually realistic. Sometimes, there’s a nice white bookshelf in the picture, showing how good-looking the living room is. Nice carpet. Bright sunlight. Flowers. Clocks. But when I tried to replicate that in my own room, I was frustrated because no matter how I arrange my items, or even use the exactly same furnitures as in the picture, they never look that good. Then I realized, it’s ok to look not like that picture, because this is exactly what life is supposed to be like. In those pictures, the ridges of the books on the shelf all have almost same colors — white or beige. The basket on the floor was white. The throws in the basket were light gray. They look nice because they eliminated additional colors that do not fit in the ambiance the picture presents. That’s not what life is, is it?
Life is colorful, not monochrome. I have books with all those kinds of colors, and it’s impossible that all of them fit in the color of my shelf. I have many other items, and they all have very different colors. That, is life. With all those colors. That is the place we’re living in, with all the things we have, not a place we’re presenting to others.
So after a while, I gave up. Although I still use some strategies to organize my stuff and make them look nice and neat, I don’t feel frustrated anymore. That is the way it’s supposed to be.
