Spring Cleaning

The moment Elle looked at her perfect, color-coded notebook calendar and realized her birthday happened to fall on the first day of Spring, she promised herself that she’d finally do it. After all, Spring cleaning was a thing right?

There was nothing Elle couldn’t plan. A natural born A-type. An organization guru. She had heard all these names at carefully put together parties and smoothly runs staff meetings. That day--the day she proclaimed herself a quarter-through-life years old--would be no different. She carefully scribelled into the tiny March 19th box 6:00 am wake up, even accounting for the sneaky hour time change. 

However, as the alarm blared that pitiful Thursday morning, Elle wanted to throw the covers over her head. Why was spring the worst season of all--the season of allergies and mid temperature weather and slushy snow and, perhaps the most dreadful, her 25th birthday. Millenials had a name for that now: a quarter life crisis. Being the bright and big eyed woman she was, Elle thought herself above such self pity, but today she spent a little extra time looking for wrinkled skin or silver little hairs in her bathroom mirror. Spring forward, more like spring back into bed Elle thought.

After neatly making the bed, brushing her teeth for two full minutes, and settling down at her desk, her eye caught the small corner of her planner. Dread swirled in her stomach as she read the day’s agenda. There it was between crying and cake: Spring cleaning.

A dilemma rose from the ink. She could either, for the first time, ignore her divine plan, or she could tear into the mess, guaranteeing her hands to emerge dirty. Where was her self-empowering Ted Talks now? Those daily hours of meditation? The candle that promised peace of mind even if that claim wasn’t supported by science?

Elle made the trek back to her room, feeling each step add weight to her body. She filed by the alphabetical files on her desk and shuffled past the shopping list she always wrote out a week in advance. She passed her pristine closet, already full of clean spring clothes. These were the moments Elle wished she had a more normal side; she wished she could wake up in the morning and open the windows and feel the promise of warmer weather instead of growing dread.

Slowly, she laid down on the hard, cold floor and shoved a hand under her bed. No dust emerged, but instead a small wooden box. The fact it didn’t have a lock made Elle uneasy. Something like this should have a lock or at least a key. 

The box had a long history, traveling through her mother’s side of the family, picking up secret tokens and lost letters along the way--things that eventually got out. When Elle inherited it on her fifteenth birthday, it was nothing but an old wooden box. Still, her mother promised every fifteen year old girl needed somewhere to keep things. Her mom, a self-proclaimed scatterbrained naturalist said the last part as if the box could magically grant her wishes. To appease her, Elle would randomly throw postcards in there, a picture every now and then, and little poems: all the things that didn’t seem to have a place in her neat room.

Ten years later, the box seemed like a haunting from the past, always a small reminder of past times creeping around as she vacuumed under her bed. To Elle, it was a Pandora’s box.

She opened it, letting all the evil spirits into the world. At the very top was a love letter. It was seven years old and from her first real boyfriend. Although he was a little too dramatic for her, she would always find his homemade romantic gestures sweet. The note was signed forever and always, and although that forever only lasted one year, Elle still kept fond memories of him; as the years went by, new lovers found more expensive, permanent gifts: bracelets, plane tickets, and even new calendars. Still, her mother’s warning rang in the back of her head: find a man who will write you a sonnet even when he lacks a pen.

Slowly, she removed a tiny magnet in the shape of Oregon. It took a moment to remember what it meant to her. As a little girl, her dad traveled to far away lands, like Oregon. Elle always liked the way it sounded, and, in her full innocence, asked for something from this magical place. Her dad, remembering his daughter’s wish on his way out of town, picked up the magnet from a tiny gas station on the highway. Although he felt bad for the dollar sign on the sticker, Elle named it her most precious possession. During Elle’s junior year of high school he stopped traveling altogether to be at home, and the knick knacks stopped. It was probably for the best, she thought. Elle was too old at that point and started to consider small knick knacks and keychains clutter.

Next was a small cassette tape--a playlist of high school tunes. Songs with lyrics Elle still could recite. Unfortunately the tape was busted in a fit of anger Elle’s senior year. She didn’t remember much of the night, as it was the first night alcohol was ever involved and the last for a while.

Various objects flooded the rest of the box: teenage diaries, a broken ornament, and a small collection of buttons. Elle tossed them to the side, knowing these things were just distractions.

Her eyes narrowed in on the last two contents of the box. A birthday card with a cartoon ballerina dancer on the cover sat to the edge. Carefully, she picked it up and ran her fingers over the bright pink colors. There was no doubt this was from her mother. She loved all types of dancers, although the woman was far from graceful herself. Sure enough the inside read in the sloppiest handwriting, Happy 16th birthday my little love! The pre-written words in the card were crossed out in fear of being too unoriginal. This folded, decorated piece of paper embodied the essence of her mother. Bright, bold, a tad eccentric. Elle remembers pushing the card to the side on her birthday, wishing she had appreciated it a little more at the time. It was just the colors didn’t necessarily match and the writing was like scribbles.

The last content in the box was a small laminated piece of paper. The Irish prayer graced the front of it along with a picture of a traditional step dancer. Elle didn’t need to read the name to know who died; it was enough to see the dates. Born August 10, died March 20, the day after Elle’s 16th birthday. The first day of Spring. Her father said that was a good sign--there was a rebirth of life on such a tragic day. To Elle, it cursed the season of spring for a lifetime.

Together that birthday card and death announcement seemed to weigh both the box and Elle’s heart down. They were the two things in her tidy little world that could not be put away. They were the two things that reminded her that years pass and people get old. However, she was surprised by the solace this gave her on a day like today--some things Elle just couldn’t control.

Elle carefully placed the various items back into the box. Only after it was neatly shoved back under the bed did she realize she could still see that little ballerina. She picked up the card, letting a small smile rest on her lips. It didn’t take long before she realized the bright colors matched her planner. Carefully, she placed the little card between the March and April pages. The card stuck out like a sore thumb, but she decided, if just for her 25th birthday, she could appreciate the way it didn’t completely match.