When you're getting ready to sell your home, chances are you'll spend weeks -- maybe even months -- cleaning, purging, organizing, simplifying, and decluttering. Every surface gets cleared off. Closets are thinned out. That collection of mismatched mugs? Boxed up. The kids' toys? Neatly contained or completely hidden.

And once all that work is done, your house will feel... peaceful... simple... uncluttered. You might even wonder why you didn't live like this all along.

But let's be honest: it's not how most of us actually live.

Here's the truth we rarely say acknowledge -- when we prepare our homes for sale, we're not just cleaning up. We're selling a lifestyle. A feeling. We're telling the next owner, "In this house, life will be different. Simpler. More organized. Less chaotic."

And yet, as soon as that new owner moves in, life takes over. Mail piles up on the counter. The garage starts to fill. The closets get full again.

Because it's not really about the house. It's just how life works.

This doesn't mean the work of simplifying and decluttering is wasted. It helps a home show better. It makes moving easier. It might even make a busy logistical time feel a bit more calm. But let's not fool ourselves -- we're not just cleaning -- we're preparing to tell a story to prospective buyers.

A lovely story. A hopeful story. But maybe, just maybe, a fictional story.