Spring Cleaning

I cleaned like crazy this past weekend. Our apartment could have been labeled a disaster zone. There should have been yellow caution tape up around it. We had a mound of recycling that hadn't been taken back since before Christmas. It got to be so big that we couldn't turn that electric heater on due to fear of fire. Dishes were stacked up with dry food on most of them. I had taken over the love seat with my electric blanket sprawled out, books, notebooks, and my computer and chords all beside it. We hadn't vacuumed or dusted in who knows how long.

Calling Leslie's and my bathroom dirty could be considered an understatement. I had jewelry, make-up, and hair supplies (and hair) all over the counter. The toilet hadn't been scrubbed since before her boyfriend threw up blueberry vodka on the side, leaving blue marks. Not to mention, our toilet seat "mysteriously" broke while Leslie and I were out of town. It slides back and forth, and if you're not careful, you might fall right off the toilet. I mean, this place could make anyone depressed and unmotivated due to causing a feeling of defeat before you even start cleaning. I didn't sleep great Friday night. I slept a lot during the day due to having another headache. I also stayed up writing, because I felt unusally creative and seemed to be making good progress on my chapter that I had to turn in today. I woke up with spunk and started cleaning and doing dishes right away. The place looks spectacular, especially considering what it used to be. We normally don't let things get that bad, but this semester has been chaos for all of us.

Sunday, I decided it needed to be the time I finally broke down and cleaned my room. I had kind of accepted that I just wouldn't get it clean before moving out, or at least until graduation with the way my schedule is going. I figured most of it could be taken care of just by doing laundry, which I needed to do anyway. When I picked up my jacket off the floor, a centipede ran out. I can't stand those things. They're incredibly fast, ugly, and they bite. After a mad chase through my dirty clothes, I killed the little devil, deciding to keep clothes off the floor for the rest of my time here. I washed my sheets and put back on my normal ones, taking off the fleece winter ones. I had too much homework to finish cleaning the entire thing. I'm really proud though, because yesterday, on my craziest day of the week,I used my short dinner break to eat a lunch-to-go and vacuum/dust my room. Now, it looks fabulous. It seems strange and calming to come home to a clean room, especially when I get the buddha fountain going with the water noises and different color lights.

I'm burried in homework. I have entire books (yes, plural) to read this weekend, long literature papers to write, and an intense amount of creative work due for fiction and my ind. study. I do not take my creative writing lightly, so the time needed to create something up to my standards feels unimaginable at this moment. I figure now that I have a clean environment to work in, I will have to be productive with homework this weekend. I will do the usual Thursday pizza and beer with Tammy and Leslie, but that will be my only fun night. There is a local folk concert that Tammy and I are hoping to catch Friday night, but that shouldn't be more than 2-3 hours.

Graduation is coming up right around the corner. I need to purchase my cap and gown, which is the least of my worries at this moment. I'm not even excited about graduating because I have such a huge load of work to finish before then, and I'm not sure how it will get done. The good news: I'm handling the stress really well. My therapist seemed impressed with how healthy I am. I just know it will all get done enough for me to graduate and that life won't end if I don't get the grade I want. I'm also getting excited and even a little zen about the whole living a life of mindfullness, writing, and reading next year. I think being given the opportunity to do such a thing requires me to be incredibly thankful. I mean, how many people get to have reading, writing, and spirituality be the center of their life? I realize I most likely will never have this opportunity again, so I plan to treasure it. Don't get me wrong, I understand it won't be easy. Being alone regularly, confronting spiritual issues I've repressed, living with no one my own age, and hearing about my friends going out on weekends will be a challenge. I'm sure I will experience loneliness and confusion to the most extreme degrees. I'm optimistic about who I will become after the life-changing experience. I think I can find a level of contentment that I've not yet achieved. Today my therapist even said that she doesn't think I have to worry about descending as far back into depression as I did, because I've developed such a better sense of identity, love for myself, and a self-awareness that many people of any age don't have. I felt honored to hear her say that. The road sure hasn't been easy or short, by any means. Spring cleaning pales in comparison to the last few years of cleaning out my insides. The thing about cleaning: you get to celebrate for a couple days and appreciate it, then there's more to do.