How to get back to the cozy rooms in the colder seasons.(A journey back to myself…again)

On growing away from the little things I loved, getting caught up in the rush of everything, and slowly finding my way back to the life that always felt like mine.

I used to have so many little things that made me happy.

I don’t mean the big, exciting things. I mean the rather ordinary ones. Listening to a song and immediately playing it again. Spending an entire afternoon reading. Finding something interesting and getting so caught up in it that I completely lost track of time. Rearranging my room, making plans for things I was excited about, having little interests that probably made very little sense to anyone else but made perfect sense to me.

I remember being so attached to these little things. They made my days feel like mine. I didn’t particularly think about why I liked them or whether I was spending my time wisely. I just liked them, and that was enough of a reason to make time for them.

And then, somewhere along the way, I stopped.

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when. There wasn’t a particular day when everything changed. Life simply got faster, and I went along with it. There were things to do, things to think about, things to keep up with. My days started filling up with one thing after another, and I got so used to moving from one thing to the next that I hardly noticed how little time I was spending on the things I actually enjoyed.

I kept telling myself I would get back to them. I would read more when I had time. I’d pick up that hobby again when things settled down. I’d listen to the music I loved when I could properly sit down and enjoy it.

Except things never really settled down. There was always something else waiting for my attention.

And gradually, the things I loved became things I remembered loving.

I still knew they were there. I could look at my books, my saved songs, all the little things I’d once been so excited about, and remember how much I used to enjoy them. I just didn’t feel the same pull towards them anymore. I had become so accustomed to thinking about what I needed to do next that I had almost forgotten how to spend time doing something simply because I wanted to.

The strange part was how ordinary it all felt while it was happening. I didn’t wake up one morning feeling like a completely different person. It was only when I finally stopped long enough to look back that I realised how much I had drifted.

I had changed the way I spent my days, the things I paid attention to, even the way I thought about my own time. Somewhere in all that rushing around, I had started treating enjoyment like something I could get around to later.

And later had become a rather distant place.

I got so caught up in everything that I forgot what I was catching up for.

I think the hardest part of slowing down is realising just how quickly you’ve been moving.

For a while, I was always thinking about the next thing. Even when I wasn’t particularly busy, my mind was busy. There was always something I should be doing, something I hadn’t done yet, something I could be doing better. I had become so used to that constant sense of urgency that I hardly questioned it anymore.

And the rush was strange because it didn’t necessarily feel like I was getting anywhere. I was just moving. One day followed another, and I kept myself occupied, kept thinking ahead, kept trying to get through whatever was in front of me.

I rarely stopped to ask whether I was enjoying any of it.

Looking back, I think I had become a little disconnected from my own life. I was still doing all the things I needed to do, still going about my days, but I wasn’t paying much attention to how those days actually felt. I had started measuring my time by what I got done rather than by what I experienced.

An afternoon spent reading felt less important than an afternoon spent doing something useful. An hour spent enjoying myself came with the faint suspicion that I could have spent it better. Even the things I loved began to feel like things I needed to make time for, as though enjoying them required some sort of careful arrangement around the rest of my life.

I don’t think I consciously decided to live that way. It happened slowly enough that I mistook it for growing up, becoming more responsible, learning to take life seriously.

And, of course, there is nothing wrong with responsibility. There are things that need to be done, and I don’t expect every day to feel like a long, uninterrupted Sunday afternoon.

But I had begun to take the rush for granted. I had forgotten that not every part of my life needed to be hurried along.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped letting myself linger.

I stopped spending a little longer on the things I liked. I stopped letting an ordinary afternoon unfold without needing to give it a purpose. I stopped paying attention to the little details that had once made my days feel so full, even when absolutely nothing remarkable was happening.

And then I wondered why everything felt so different.

I didn’t realise how much I missed the little things until I started noticing them again.(Obviously!)

There is something quite peculiar about returning to things you used to love.

You don’t always come back to them with the same enthusiasm you remember. Sometimes you pick up an old book and struggle to get through the first few pages. Sometimes a familiar song plays, and you remember a time when you couldn’t imagine ever getting tired of it. Sometimes you try to revisit an old interest and feel a little strange, almost as though you’re meeting a version of yourself you haven’t seen in a long time.

I experienced a little of that distance myself. I remembered the things I used to enjoy, but I also remembered how differently I had begun to live. I had become accustomed to doing everything quickly, moving on before I’d really had the chance to enjoy something, filling every spare moment with something else.

It took me a while to realise that I had started expecting even my hobbies to compete for my attention.

I wanted to enjoy something, but I also wanted to get on with everything else. I wanted to read, but I wanted to finish the book. I wanted to listen to music, but I was already thinking about what I needed to do afterwards. I wanted to spend time on something I liked, but I had become so used to rushing that even my free time felt strangely hurried.

I had forgotten the pleasure of being absorbed in something without looking at the clock.

So I started paying attention to the little things again. Not in any particularly organised way. There was no grand plan to become the person I used to be, no list of hobbies to revive, no schedule for making my life more enjoyable.

I simply began noticing what I had missed.

A song I wanted to hear again. A book I wanted to pick up. An afternoon when I didn’t feel like doing very much. The familiar comfort of being in my room with nothing demanding my immediate attention.

And slowly, these things began to feel familiar again.

Not exactly as they had before. I wasn’t going backwards, and I wasn’t trying to recreate some earlier version of my life. I was discovering that I could still enjoy these things, even after all the time I had spent away from them.

I hadn’t lost every part of myself in the rush. I had simply stopped giving certain parts of myself much room.

There was something reassuring about realising that.

The room never really changed. I think I just stopped noticing it.

I’ve always loved the feeling of a cosy room, particularly when the weather starts getting colder.

There is a certain comfort in coming inside as the evening settles in, closing the curtains, switching on a warm lamp, and watching the room take on a completely different feeling. The light becomes softer. Everything seems a little quieter. A blanket left on the bed suddenly looks inviting rather than untidy, and sitting down with a book feels like a perfectly reasonable way to spend the next few hours.

I love the little details of it all. The books on the shelf, the familiar things scattered around my room, the soft light falling across the walls. The feeling of being somewhere I know so well that I don’t have to think about anything for a little while.

And I realised that this comfort had been there all along.

My room hadn’t suddenly become less lovely. The books hadn’t become less interesting. The little things that made an evening feel special hadn’t disappeared. I had simply become so occupied with everything else that I wasn’t giving myself much time to enjoy them.

I would be in my room without really being there. I would spend an evening thinking about the next day, or the things I hadn’t finished, or all the other things I ought to be doing. Even when I had nowhere to go and nothing particularly urgent to attend to, I could make an ordinary evening feel like a waiting room for the rest of my life.

It seems rather silly when I put it that way, but that is what happened.

And the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to return to that quieter way of spending my time.

I wanted my room to become somewhere I looked forward to being, not simply somewhere I went when the day was over. I wanted to enjoy the evenings again. I wanted to read under the warm light of a lamp, listen to music while the weather changed outside, and spend an unreasonable amount of time making my surroundings feel comfortable.

I wanted to have little things to look forward to that didn’t involve going anywhere or achieving anything.

A book waiting on my bedside table. A playlist for the colder months. A favourite blanket, a cup of tea, the sound of rain against the window. The kind of evening that would have seemed entirely ordinary at one point in my life, but that I had somehow forgotten to appreciate.

I didn’t need to make my room into something entirely new. I didn’t need to change everything about my life to feel differently about it.

I just needed to spend time in it.

And I wanted to do that slowly.

Not turn it into another project, not make a list of all the cosy things I needed to buy, not decide that I would become a completely different person as soon as the weather turned cold.

I wanted to let the comfort return naturally. To enjoy the little rituals as they happened. To sit down without immediately reaching for something else to occupy me. To let an evening be quiet without feeling the need to fill it.

There is a kind of happiness in that which I had been missing.

It is not particularly exciting. It doesn’t make for a remarkable story. But there is something lovely about having a space that feels familiar, a few things you genuinely enjoy, and enough time to appreciate them.

Sometimes, that is all an ordinary day needs.

I’ve come to realise that I don’t have to be the same person all the time.

For a while, I think I was bothered by how different I felt from the person I remembered being.

I remembered how easily I used to get excited about little things, how much time I could spend on an interest, how naturally I seemed to find enjoyment in ordinary afternoons. And when I couldn’t quite find that same feeling, I wondered when I had changed so much.

But I don’t think I understand myself as a fixed person anymore.

There are periods when I feel connected to the things I love, and periods when I become so caught up in everything else that I hardly think about them. Sometimes I want to spend all my time exploring new interests, and sometimes I want to return to familiar things and stay there for a while.

My priorities change. My attention changes. The way I spend my days changes.

And I am beginning to see that this is simply part of living.

Not every phase of life feels the same. Not every version of me will want the same things, and not every interest will stay at the centre of my attention forever. I can grow away from something for a while and still find my way back to it. I can enjoy different things at different times without having to turn every change into a statement about who I am.

I can also admit that I have been rushing too much without deciding that I have somehow failed at life.

That is something I am trying to be kinder to myself about.

Looking back, I can see how easily I let the pace of my days determine the way I felt about them. I got caught up in the things I needed to do, and gradually, I stopped making space for the things that made me happy. It wasn’t a conscious choice to leave them behind. It was just what happened when I kept moving without stopping to notice where I was going.

Now that I have noticed, I don’t particularly want to rush into fixing it.

I don’t need to make up for all the afternoons I spent distracted, or all the books I didn’t read, or all the little things I kept putting off. I don’t need to return to every old interest just to prove that I still enjoy it.

I can let myself find out what feels right now.

Some things will return. Others won’t. I’ll discover new interests, change my mind, and probably go through this whole process again at some point.

And that is all right.

I am allowed to have a life that changes shape every now and then.

A little more time, a little less hurry.

As the colder months approach, I find myself wanting to make my days feel a little softer.

I want to spend more time enjoying the things around me instead of constantly thinking about what comes next. I want to return to the books and music I’ve neglected, find little things that interest me, and make my evenings feel like something I can look forward to.

I want to slow down enough to notice when I am happy.

Not just during the big, memorable moments, but in the middle of an ordinary day. When I find a song I love. When I get absorbed in a book. When I sit in my room as the light fades outside and realise that I am quite content to be there.

I want to stop overlooking these moments simply because they don’t seem important enough to hold my attention for very long.

And I want to do all of this without making it another thing I need to get right.

There is no deadline for finding my way back to the things I love. I don’t need to have everything figured out by the time the season changes. I can take my time rediscovering old interests, making new routines, and figuring out what I want my days to look like.

I can have an unproductive afternoon and enjoy it. I can spend an entire evening doing something small and ordinary. I can leave a book unfinished for a while, return to it months later, and pick up where I left off.

I can let life happen at its own pace sometimes.

And perhaps that is what I have been missing most: the feeling that I don’t have to hurry through every part of my life to get to the next one.

I have spent enough time thinking about the things I need to do, the places I need to get to, and the person I am supposed to become. I would quite like to spend some time enjoying the person I am right now, even if I am still figuring things out.

So I think I’ll start with the little things.

I’ll make my room a little cosier as the evenings get colder. I’ll put on the music I used to love. I’ll pick up a book and read a few pages without worrying about how long it will take me to finish it. I’ll find things to look forward to that don’t require much more than a quiet evening and a little time to myself.

And I’ll let it happen slowly.

There is no great transformation waiting at the end of this. No perfect version of myself I need to reach before I can finally relax. Just the small, familiar pleasure of returning to things that make me happy, and the quiet realisation that I can always make room for them again.

I think I’ve spent enough time rushing through my days.

For a while, I’d like to linger.

I’d like to watch the evenings grow colder, keep my favourite things close, and make my room somewhere I am always happy to return to. I’d like to spend more time doing things I love and less time wondering whether I should be doing something else.

And when I inevitably drift away from some of these things again, I’ll know that it isn’t the end of the world. Life will have another season, and I’ll find my way through that one, too.

For now, there is a room waiting to be made cosy, a book I want to read, and an evening that doesn’t need to amount to anything more than itself.

I think I’ll start there.

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