A Room With A View - a window to true happiness
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This tiny, sunny ☀️☁️ room with a view in a San Francisco apartment (part of a 3-unit Victorian house) was where my creative endeavors began. Every time I stepped into that space, I felt energized and joyful. I wanted to spend as much time as possible in that room. I filled it with everything that made me happy at the time, even though it was tiny.
There was also a tiny balcony and staircase landing, just off to the side of the room. I used these areas for my potted garden.
I wanted to spend as much time as possible in this space. It’s hard to put into words why I was so happy in this room, but I'll try anyway.
In this tiny room, I had everything I needed to be creative. My favorite books, including plant books for my potted garden, craft books, craft supplies, my sewing machine, my yarn spinner wheel, even a few rolls of fabric!, stationery for when I used to write handwritten letters on a whim, and lots more. It was my creative space. Somehow, this special room inspired me and I found my creative juices flowing abundantly whenever I was in it.
The ropes were tied temporarily to keep the newly potted plants from being blown off by the strong winds! Plants were periodically changed.
I always felt inspired and motivated in that tiny room and balcony. I didn't know how to sew or knit, so I taught myself from books and practiced until I was good at them. I also didn't know how to grow a garden, but I learned from books, experimented, and loved it when my plants thrived. I soon added a water feature indoors with more plants, which made the space even more serene and brought me even more joy. It all kept me motivated and inspired.
So, it was in this tiny room with a view that I was inspired to begin my online endeavors. I had no idea what a roller coaster ride lay ahead of me! This was the start of my journey.
I didn't know anything about social media back then, so I just hopped onto Twitter and made quite a few virtual friends. Instagram didn't exist yet! Yes, it was that long ago! I was super active on Twitter during my three-month wait for my domain name, ClosetDelights.com, which I eventually secured. I was so active on social media that by the time I launched my website, search engines knew exactly where to find me.
I started selling my handmade crafts and a few vintage items in my Closet Delights (re-opening soon!) online shops on Etsy and eBay. Even though the shop was only open for a short month, I actually made sales in both of my shops 🎉! I remember my first sale being a vintage crinoline petticoat! I was in my vintage clothes phase at the time, and I loved the way dresses with circular skirts looked with a crinoline petticoat. I ended up with a spare, so I decided to sell it. I also bought a mannequin to model the clothes that I wanted to sell. It was just my luck that the mannequin had the same measurements as me back then (I was doing ballet as an adult student at the time!). That room got filled up quickly!
Hearing the word “sewing”, people often visualize a needle & thread 🪡 🧵 and a sewing machine, but that’s just a small part of the process. It involves so much more, like ironing, pinning, cutting, more pinning, machining, more ironing, lots of trimming and a lot more ironing, etc!
When I needed to sew, I folded out my expandable fabric cutting table in the only space that it could fit in, which was the kitchen, next to my tiny room. If you look closely, you can see that I used a part of the kitchen wall to hang my thread organizer. I made everything work within that tiny challenging space, and I was very HAPPY.
My tagline for Closet Delights was "Be Happy! Surprise yourself!", and I lived by it every day. I truly felt happy, and I was always excited to see what the future held. However, I believe that this tagline will change with the upcoming website remodel. I'm open to suggestions for a new tagline, so let me know if you have any suggestions here!
One day, a good male friend came to visit. I proudly showed him my room and excitedly told him about all the things that I was inspired to create in that space. Later that day, we all went out for dinner. During the dinner conversation, that friend turned to my husband and, in a nonchalant manner, referred to my room as “Oh, that junk room.”
I was 😱 shocked. I was literally 😶 speechless. I was also 💔 heartbroken.
The next morning, when the sun 🌤 rose again and my plants greeted me as I had my morning coffee in that tiny room, I was immediately filled with great happiness and comfort. I realized that I didn't care what my friend called my room. It didn't matter because nothing could steal the joy that it gave me. After coffee, I started working again with full inspiration and found myself humming happily.
His comment made me realize that no one can steal my true happiness and love for something unless I let them. They don't have to love it for me to love it, and they don't have to love it for it to make me happy. I wasn't going to let him take away my happiness.
I was even happier that my happiness from that room wasn't reliant on anyone else or anything else. I didn't feel the need to convince him otherwise. My little Room With A View made ME HAPPY. I was happy there, and nothing could mar my happy feeling whenever I was in that room. Even when I had a hard day elsewhere, all I needed to do was go into that room and immediately, I would calm down and start feeling myself being recharged with happy inspiration again. It was magic for me!
I'm sharing photos of that tiny room with a view that made me so happy on this blog. You may hate it and agree with my friend, or you may like it. But what matters is that little room gave me BIG JOY! It will always have a special place in my heart ❤️, and I will remember it fondly with all the important lessons it has taught me.
Ever since that experience, MY LITMUS TEST has been to ask myself,
“DOES THIS MAKE ME ‘JUNK ROOM HAPPY’ ?”
When you have something that makes you “junk room happy”, you’re one of the luckiest and happiest people on Earth because your happiness isn’t reliant on someone or something else.
It's the same with passion projects.
Passion projects are personal. Your passion is YOURS, and no one else’s. Even if others share the same passion as you, we all experience it at different levels. When you share your passion or idea with others, It may not make sense to them. Some people will get it, and some won’t.
But if it makes you "junk room happy”, nothing else matters. What matters is that it makes YOU happy, and maybe you'll find others who eventually share that happiness with you.
p/s The small Room with a View that brought me so much JOY was in a rented apartment. I’m still friends with the landlady, and I’ve been back to visit the apartment a few times when it was vacant. Even though it was empty, being back there still made me very happy and brought back many joyous memories!
In case you're wondering, I'm still good friends with him. I even told him about this blog post! Our friendship isn't reliant on him loving everything that I love, and that's perfectly fine.
I'm just glad that because of him, I discovered how to find my own happiness that doesn't depend on anyone else.
I wish you all the best in finding and maintaining YOUR own
‘junk room happy’-ness too!
We eventually moved to a huge house. I guess I was space-starved after that small apartment! The move forced me to put Closet Delights on hold after only a couple of months. I had no idea then that the "pause" would drag on for years!
If you'd like to find out what happened next, stay tuned for the continuation of this true story in my next blog post, "In Pursuit of Sustainable Happiness."
If you have any questions or just want to chat about the topic, please feel free to send me a message using my Contact & Connect page 🙂
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