???When I woke up Saturday morning, something weird was going on. The sky wasn't its usual depressing shade of grey, I wasn't freezing and the chirps of tiny birds floated through my window. Spring, it seemed, had sprung.
???I'm not sure what it was, but something about the sunlight prompted me to pull myself out of bed and clean my room.
???I try not to live like a complete slob, but I got pretty hardcore about it that morning. Shelves were dusted. Shoes were organized. Giant dust bunnies were swept away. The sight of me pulling the vacuum out of the front hall closet left my mother pleasantly confused.
???It was a long, arduous process, but after a few hours and a lot of Lysol, I could actually see the nice day through my newly clean window and the air in my room felt lighter. I happily did a little homework and left for my job at Tops that night with a skip in my step.
???I'm not normally that productive on a Saturday. I wake up at about 11 a.m. and stay in bed catching up on Gossip Girl while compulsively checking in with Perez Hilton. I certainly don't study or drag myself to work at 6 p.m. to pretend to be productive until midnight.
???But that morning, I felt a sense of camaraderie with little bamboo plant that sits on my bookshelf. The sun swept over me, helping me grow and convert light into energy, but instead of producing oxygen, I got a fresh outlook.
???After all that cleaning, I celebrated by going to Tim Horton's with my younger sister. It was probably the first time we'd hung out in who knows how many weeks, even though we both still live in the same house.
???There are a lot of small things I've been neglecting. Spring is a good time to bust out the metaphorical DustBuster, cleaning up all those little corners of your life that fall to the wayside during the never-ending drudgery of the winter months.
???We all need a little sprucing up now and then. It really doesn't matter what you do and it doesn't have to be a big production. Clean out your closet or the trunk of your car. Fill out that job application that's been cluttering up your desk for a month. Catch up on all the e-mails sitting in your inbox that you haven't responded to or call a friend you haven't seen for a while, just to chat.
???I don't remember what my sister and I talked about. I don't think we talked about much of anything besides which flavor cappuccino to get or which radio station to listen to on the drive there.
???And I'm sure it's only a matter of days before we slip back into our old pattern of texting insults to each other while fighting over who stole whose favorite sweater. But for now, we've got a little bit more positivity to throw into the mix.
???The Weather Channel is telling me not to get too excited. I've got some time left before I can officially break out the sundresses. You can clean all you want. The dust bunnies eventually creep back. But for the time being, my room and my life are a little neater than they were a week ago.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
