The number one argument in my house is definitely when it comes to cleaning. I personally believe in organized chaos, but my mom does not agree with my ways. I just don't see the point of having my things look neat if I already know where they are. My clothes are where my organized chaos method shows. I'm in a constant loop of cleaning my drawers and messing it up again. I just did not want to go through the cycle of that, so I would just leave the folded clothes on a chair and we all know what that looks like.

Then comes Marie Kondo. Marie Kondo is famously known for her book "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up." Her method, known as the KonMari method, relies on getting rid of items that no longer make you happy and keep the ones that spark joy. Netflix released her show "Tidying Up with Marie Kondo" was on New Year's Day. I tried avoiding the show because I didn't think I'd enjoy watching people clean for an hour, but seeing all the memes on Instagram made me want to give it a try.

I was so inspired by how much cleaning changes people's lives. The people in the show were so much happier after tidying up and I wanted to experience that joy. After watching an episode I began to tidy up the drawers in my house. Sadly, I do not have any before pictures of the drawers since I was too excited to tidy (shocker I know). The drawers were spilling at the seams and barely closed. There were shirts randomly put in different drawers for the sake of putting them somewhere. One drawer even broke and I had to nail it back together.

Marie Kondo organizes clothes by emptying them all out onto a pile and holding each one and seeing if they spark joy. Some people have a hard time of knowing if an item sparked joy, but I just felt it. Some clothes brought back good memories like the shirt I wore to model congress and the dress I wore to my graduation. Other clothes I had no attachment to like all my Hollister shirts from years ago. After figuring out which clothes to keep or donate, it was time to fold. I hate folding clothes, but her method was fun for me. She folds clothes into rectangles and then in thirds so that they can be stacked where the clothes stand up. It makes the clothes easier to see and get out of the drawers. It took me 4 hours to clean 15 drawers which is a miracle.

Patricia Lalo

Netflix is a genius for releasing the show right on New Year's Day since people are the most motivated in January. Cleaning my drawers definitely helped me feel productive over my break and start the new year on the right foot.