April 30, 2021

Spring Cleaning

By Carly Brechner

Spring cleaning. Finding forgotten things that either spark joy or are placed into donation boxes. I’ve never really understood the idea of with regards to organizing and physically cleaning things, I always do a big clean before the start of the school year in August and sometimes one in January, the two times a year that feels like a fresh start. Spring cleaning always seemed like such a random period of time to me: it’s not Summer but it’s not Winter, it’s sort of an in-between.

Finishing freshman year of college amidst all of the chaos this year has been quite the feat. From making new friends, adjusting to new surroundings, abruptly moving out of the dorms halfway through the year, and managing “Zoom fatigue”, getting through these past nine months is an accomplishment. While preparing to leave Ann Arbor and head home in the upcoming weeks, I know a lot of people have been grappling with a strange feeling: emptiness. We’ve finished the chapter of the school year but it’s too soon to start summer which doesn’t quite begin till June.

Spring cleaning has redefined itself for me this year as a way to combat this emptiness, this gap, this in-between. I’m packing up my Timberlands, going out tops, and textbooks of classes that I will be leaving behind. I’m going to miss the late nights at Joe’s Pizza and walks through the Diag, but am excited to see what can happen when I take some time for myself during the next two months.

Never before have I, like many others, had such an open period of time throughout the Spring months to “clean” everything up. This is the first time that the blossoming of trees and bad seasonal allergies means a fresh start for me. This new idea of spring cleaning is different for everyone. It might mean developing a new habit, spending extra time with my family, connecting with old friends, or simply just packing up your college apartment. I hope that as we depart Ann Arbor all of us take this time to press the reset on our lives, jump into the in-between, and regain some sense of ourselves or whatever spring cleaning brings.

Edited By Carolyn Berryman