A day in the life : Day 413

I tried one of those trending “deep cleaning hacks” videos this week, the kind where people magically transform their entire house in under an hour. It looked simple enough, so I picked one corner of my place and decided to follow along. Within ten minutes, I realized those videos skip the part where you pull out everything you’ve ignored for months. My room looked worse before it looked better — way worse.

At one point, I found an old notebook with half-written plans from last year. It bothered me a little; some of those goals still weren’t done. But instead of feeling guilty, I just smiled at how ambitious I was back then. Life doesn’t always move in straight lines, and maybe that’s okay.

The weather has been drying out lately, so dust settles faster than usual. That pushed me to go beyond the usual quick wipe-down. I opened windows, reorganized shelves, even switched to lighter meals because heavy food just doesn’t sit well in this kind of heat. Small seasonal changes actually do make you feel fresher.

By the end of the clean-up, the room felt brighter, and I felt oddly lighter too. It reminded me that sometimes the mess outside is tied to the mess inside. Fix one, and the other starts shifting on its own.

Trends come and go, but this one wasn’t bad. Not because it made my space look Instagram-ready, but because it nudged me to reset things I’d been ignoring. A little cleaning, a little reflection — funny how those two often go hand in hand.