The Corner of My Kitchen That Helped Me Come Back to Life

There was a season when I couldn’t stand to be in my own kitchen. Not because of the mess (though that was definitely there), but because it felt like every inch of it reminded me of how much I was just surviving.

The cords for headphones, phones, kindles, and honestly who knows what else. 

The random pieces of things that had broken or come unscrewed. 

The drying rack for bottles and cups.  All encompassed by the hand towels thrown about and the paper towel roll that never seemed to find a home.

What a miraculous calming view to attempt to come up with a dinner plan

while trying not to scream at the kids through witching hours. That corner was as chaotic as I felt inside and looking at it brought instant anxiety.

One afternoon, something shifted. Not in a big, breakthrough sort of way more like a quiet internal nudge: “This space is reflecting your burnout. What if it could start reflecting your healing instead?”

So, I started with one corner. Just one.

The one that held all our cluttered cords and kitchen utensils, what a combination right? But in all seriousness, it seemed like the least daunting corner or all the kitchen corners, and I just wanted one spot where it seemed “together”. A spot I could look at and feel the cozy rolling off it. 

I didn’t gut the kitchen or buy 19 labeled containers. 

I didn’t paint anything. I just made it feel like me again.

I added a cookbook holder, some cookbooks I had setting in a cabinet for far too long, and a lamp. It went from being a corner that felt purposeless to a corner that felt purposeful and that was the feeling I was wanting for myself. Yes of course I am a wife, a mother, a friend, a daughter, I have purpose, but I had lost sight of that for a minute (or 10).

This was never about aesthetics. It was about agency. I needed one space to remind me that I still had say-so in my own life.

That tiny shift made me show up differently. It didn’t “fix” everything overnight (spoiler: nothing does), but it softened the edges of my day. It reminded me that healing doesn't have to be loud. Sometimes it’s as quiet as wiping down a countertop with your bare hands and reclaiming it.

This small little counter top corner has been my cue to take a deep breath, close my eyes, to soak up the moments, and to reclaim whatever I feel like I have lost in the day to day homemaking hustle. But the biggest thing for me is the reminder that every day I am trying. I am trying to be the me God created me to be so that my kids grow up believing in being the them God created them to be. 

So if you’re sitting in your kitchen right now feeling like everything is too much don’t clean the whole thing. Pick a corner. Make it yours. Let it hold your healing. You don’t have to rebuild your entire life in a weekend. You just have to start with one sacred square foot.