When I moved to NYC, I went to Macy’s to buy a set of new towels, because I didn’t bring any with me. I bought two towels, one in chocolate brown and one in a camel shade of tan. I always joke it was at THIS very moment I knew I was officially an adult, because I had successfully managed to buy towels that were a color other than HOT PINK or LIME GREEN. Or better yet, hot pink AND lime green.

Don’t get me wrong. This was a conscious, deliberate decision. I still desperately wanted to take home a set of obnoxiously bright-colored towels, but I figured the earthy shades would somehow fit in better with My New Life in New York City.

So, I left Macy’s with New Towels for My New Life, and I immediately called my mother to tell her that I was an officially an adult. She laughed when I told her why. However, I’m here now to say I was wrong. I don’t think I have officially become an adult until today.

When I moved into my first place, my mother had all sorts of wisdom about Cleaning and Organizing to bestow upon me. But being an uber geek inherently means I have borderline obsessive-compulsive tendencies about The Way Things Are Organized, specifically The Way MY Things Are Organized. These strict organizational habits began at an early age, starting with the files and folders on my hard drive, and later developing into the way I consume information and the way I organize and manage knowledge in my brain.

Eventually, my organizational geekiness leaked over into more mundane habits, too. Like the way the clothes are hung in my closets (categorized and then color-coded) and the way my books are shelved (by topic and then by size in vertical stacks, rather than horizontally lined up).

But while Organizing came easily to me, Cleaning did not.

In the realm of mothers, my mother has a LOT of valuable tips and hints to dispense about Cleaning. That woman is the Queen of Clean. I dare you to give her a dingy yellow shirt that she cannot render white again.

Plus, she seems to have this amazing aptitude for the constant process of cleaning. I like to think about her method as ‘incremental to avoid monumental.’ When she brings a dish to the sink, she rinses it off and PUTS IT DIRECTLY IN THE DISHWASHER. Insanity! I mean, I can barely get the “bringing the dish to the sink” part down, let alone rinsing them off. I definitely wait for the sink to get full before I even start thinking about loading them in the dishwasher.

And don’t even get me started on laundry. It’s the absolute BANE of my life. But somehow, my mother makes laundry a consistent activity, instead of, like me, waiting until there is an overwhelming pile of it that can simply NOT be ignored any longer. Or better yet, avoiding it anyway, and going shopping for NEW clothes to wear instead!

So even though I undoubtedly excel at keeping my room neat and organized, I do not necessarily succeed at keeping it clean. However, today, I noticed an extraordinary transformation in myself.

It’s Sunday afternoon, so I was tidying up my room. When I moved the papers and miscellaneous objects that had gathered the area of my workspace, I looked at the now uncluttered expanse of my desk that was covered in dust and thought, “Huh, I should probably wipe that down while there isn’t anything on it.”

This is a paradigm shift, people. I have never once looked at an empty flat surface and said to myself, “I should clean that before I start putting stuff on it.” No. Not at all. My thinking would be more along the lines of, “Oooh, newly discovered unused space, how can I most efficiently and effectively make use of this RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND?” And then I would immediately start making vertical stacks of books after I artfully arranged them by topic and then by size.

Furthermore, after admiring the deep sheen that resulted from wiping down my dark-colored wood desk, I turned around and purposely moved all of the various make-up and hair-products off of my dresser with the specific intention of WIPING THAT DOWN TOO.

My mother will be no less shocked to hear this than she will be when I tell her that when I sat down and started writing this post, I realized my fingernails were too long and getting in the way of my typing; when I got my fingernail clippers out, I then proceeded to move my chair into a position where the fingernail clippings would fall DIRECTLY INTO the nearest trash receptacle.

I know, this is huge news. She’s been trying to drill that one into me since I was old enough to wield the clippers all by myself!!