Spring Cleaning...

When I was growing up, my mom didn’t just do spring cleaning—she committed to it like it was an Olympic sport. Naturally, I was drafted onto the team. Closets and drawers were emptied with dramatic flair, and up from the basement came the sacred box labeled Summer or Winter, depending on the mood of the month.

We’d get down on our hands and knees to scrub shelves and floors. Dressers were hauled out like reluctant participants and cleaned underneath (a place where dust bunnies clearly paid rent). As the seasonal clothes rotated in, anything stained or damaged went into the giveaway pile, while items needing mending or pressing were neatly tucked into a basket.

Order restored—at least temporarily.

The same ritual applied to the kitchen, dining room (how many fancy glasses does one house need), and living room. We purged everything: old envelopes, chipped mugs that were no longer funny, and mysterious items we apparently saved “just in case.” Windows and doors were flung open, letting in fresh air to dry the floors and gently battle the unmistakable scent of cleaning products.

These days, I find myself doing something similar—minus the bleach, because honestly, that stuff feels like a personal attack.

This weekend, I started with my bedroom, which—after a particularly busy and emotionally chaotic month—looked like it belonged to a teenager with an intense soccer schedule and a casual relationship with cleanliness. I began with my sewing area, where a few small winter projects had multiplied into a mild explosion of fabric and “I’ll deal with that later” piles. Fabric organized in bins? Check. Two small repairs done? Check. (Including a creatively modified goalie glove for my son, who seems determined to break his pinky as a hobby.)

Next up: the closet. A few boxes of old papers—gone. A box of bikinis—also gone (we had a good run). Then came the cute little baskets filled with wallets, old jewelry boxes, travel bags, and the general category of “things I might need someday but definitely forgot I owned.” I was on a roll.

And then I stumbled upon a stack of small, handwritten notes I had written to myself when the kids were little.

Back then, I was a work-at-home mom—running a daycare during the day, teaching yoga and prenatal classes most evenings and weekends, and volunteering at my kids’ school whenever I could. From the outside, it looked like I had it all together. But sometimes, in the quiet of my walk-in closet—often in the dark—I’d sit on the floor eating chips and wondering how I was possibly messing everything up.

I took all the things I said to the women in my prenatal and mom-and-baby yoga classes—the encouragement, the reassurance, the “you’re doing better than you think”—and wrote them down for myself. Some went on the corkboard in front of my desk. Others I shared with my students, fanning them out at the end of class or quietly placing one on a mat when I had a feeling someone needed it.

Lately, parenting has entered a particularly strange phase. My boys are adults now, out doing their thing, and I’m learning how to support them while also getting to know who they’re becoming. My daughter is stepping into her next chapter, figuring out her path. I’m still their mother—but the role feels different now, less hands-on and more… interpretive.

And I’ll be honest: I still worry about getting it wrong.

Am I saying the right thing? Am I too involved—or not involved enough? Do they want support, or do they need space? And yes, before anyone suggests it—I do ask them. But even that can feel complicated sometimes.

So there I was, mid–spring clean, sitting on the floor (some things never change), holding these little notes from a time when I felt completely overwhelmed—and somehow, they were exactly what I needed to hear now.

When my house feels chaotic, my kids are flying the nest, and my life is stretching in a hundred different directions, these tiny scraps of paper reminded me: I’ve been here before. Maybe not in the same way, but in that same feeling of “Am I doing this right?”

And maybe the answer has always been the same.

I took a photo of the notes and sent them to a few moms I know—women who show up, work hard, and care deeply. Women I’ve been “in the trenches” with through so many phases of motherhood. Women who seem like they have it all together—but would absolutely say yes to five uninterrupted minutes in a car or closet with a bag of chips.

Turns out, we’re all still figuring it out.

Just maybe with slightly cleaner closets.