The 3 Emotional Stages of Spring Cleaning

With the smell of spring in the air, I have felt the uncontrollable urge to do some dusting, cleaning, re-arranging, and organizing of my room. This would be a completely normal thing to do in spring......if I was a 40 year-old house-wife and mother of three. As a 13 teen year-old girl, choosing to clean her room over texting her friends is a little bit out of the ordinary. I think what drives me is the fact that organization is the one thing I can never quite achieve. There are also some basic signs that suggest it’s time. For example, when you have forgotten the color of your carpet; it’s a sign. When you find your toothbrush in a pile of clothes under your pillow; it’s also a sign. But everytime I attempt to clean my room (which is about once a week) it ends in complete and total disaster. There are three stages of emotion that I go through when trying to spring-clean (or just clean at all). At first, I am emotionally stable and very excited to finally organize my room. I put on my “cleaning” outfit, pull out a duster, and even spend 30 minutes going through my itunes library to find inspirational music to keep me going. By the time I go through the second stage, my room is ten times worse and looks like a tornado swept through. Once I have fully gotten frustrated at my inability to get anything done, I spiral down into the last stage- complete denial and deep depression about my lack of cleaning abilities. I went in there with a feeling of excitement and a pretty clean room and leave with sadness and an even messier room. So before trying to do your own spring cleaning- really sit down and think about the affects it will have on your emotional health. Other than that, enjoy and I hope you have better than luck than me at it!

-Scatterbrain Sam