Why can’t you be bored?

You know being a mom is this dirty word sometimes.

It’s a weird situation, calling someone a mom comes with a lot of imagery in our heads. Everyone has a vision of what the perfect mom looks like. Add social media to the mix and moms have so many roles imposed on them.

But you know what you never see… where are the bored moms?

I love boredom… boredom is so “Fantastic” when my girls come running into the room to save them from their boredom I emphatically say:

Boredom is the beginning of creativity.

Because when you are so bored with the tasks or feel like that around you is mundane you will finally come to the creative place your inner spirit needs to go to grow.

But boredom is shamed if you are a mom. Moms are never allowed to be bored. People will shun you and question your validity in parenting if you uttered the words: “I am bored.” Some parts of parenting is extremely boring. I hated pumping it was so dreadful I hated it so much so I wouldn’t do it. Cleaning the house can be boring. Making dinner every night can get boring.

Why do we have to pretend we love all parts of being a parent. I love being a mom, I love talking and spending time getting to know my girls further. But having to say every night, ok get ready for bed, did you brush your teeth, wash your face, go peepee? gets horribly boring.

I have become so incredibly bored with the mundane that I am patiently waiting for the creative to kick in. To find ways to enjoy as much with my kids, dating my husband or even alone… I am filling the days for us as a unit while also encouraging my girls to figure out how to cope with their boredom.

So I am going to say it out loud for all us moms who are in this place right now. I AM BORED… and I am allowed to be.

Boobs… the story of a love lost.

Let me get the first part of my chest (excuse the obvious pun) but I had a breast reduction.

I got a Breast reduction in Toronto in 2017. I got it because I really hated my breasts. I hated my breasts for what they did to my neck which no longer had a curve, what they did to my shoulders as I compensated for years for their girth, for how I never fitted into proper clothing.

I remember my family joking at my 7 year old body which had started to develop, I had breasts as long as I could remember. I was synonymous for my boobs. They were me. They had been part of me forever and I finally came to term to say Goodbye to them.

In high school, they got me a lot of attention. They were huge and everyone commented on them. Girls found them overwhelming and would make snide comments like can’t you put those away, boys would ask for a little more. I won’t lie I was popular with the boys.

I was never shy about my boobs and may have even played them up. Hey you all are going to talk about them, so I am going to flaunt them in your faces. Girls who complained about them being too big, needing to be covered only spurred me further to be annoying.

And then I got pregnant. I remember listening to women explain how much their boobs changed with pregnancy and post baby. Mine did not. 4 babies, a little saggier than they were when I was 15, they were any smaller. They were being lifted into a size DDD/E because well there was also the reality that one was way larger than the other. But the truth is at 24, I worked at a Chiropractor clinic, when the lead chiropractor said my shoulders will never come back if I never dealt with my frontal weight. I remember my GP saying tell me when you will stop having babies and we will work on getting the surgery required.

2014 my last baby was born and so the reality of it was time to fix me became important to me. I made the conscious effort to go under the knife for an elective surgery. I heard about all the horrid possibilities, like losing my nipples to necrosis. But I was steadfast… my children scared… even second guessing the choice because who would I be without my boobs.

And then I woke up. With far less pain than I imagined… the weight was lifted off my chest. It was surreal. Strapped in like a mummy, daughters confused and looking at my feet from the top of my body with joy. And the rest is history.

How do you love yourself?

I had written a post about the world strong for today, … I did.

I started writing it about how I hated being called the word strong because I just wasn’t. I felt that I never lived up to that term that some had called me recently. And the word had been thrown in my direction since losing our baby.

And so for my blog post I looked up the definition of strong…

All these words like indestructible, solid, tough and resilient came up, and I can promise physically I don’t see those words reflecting back in the mirror at me.

But as I sat to think about it, I have been all those words personally… NOT physically.

Why did it take me to start writing a post about the term strong to finally see myself as a word others use to describe me so often? Why did I not want to believe people when they said it? Why did I waver at the idea that this was my truth? And most of all why didn’t I love myself enough to believe I was strong?

Parenting has taught me a lot about myself that I don’t like… not in a bad way, but in a very looking at myself differently and seeing why I haven’t always been so good to myself. I think I associated the word tough as a shield, a force that didn’t allow people in… a good friend of mine had said that my husband and I use to seem too intimidating in our motorcycle leathers riding throughout Toronto like badasses… and this idea always made me laugh because I see myself as this bubbly fun, pink loving girly girl. But I wasn’t giving that off.

Clearly from the last few posts you can obviously see that I am not afraid to speak my truth, but some how I haven’t been living my truth, maybe I was in my tight black pants in my leather jacket was protecting the pink loving bubbly girl. Maybe I was holding on to that bubbly girl in my head because I never wanted to be the harsh strong badass I was becoming, maybe I just wasn’t prepared to love myself enough to see it either way… but I was sending off signals and wasn’t owning my own truth.

But now I have daughters and I am a great mom, yeah I will own that one… I let my girls walk around my home owning 100% of who they are, sometimes I ask them if their current opinion is doing them any good… and maybe coming to this laptop today was the Universe asking me is my current opinion of myself doing me any good.

What is so wrong with being strong, anyways, Angie??

You know this blog has been a place for me to speak my truth. Many times in the years that I wrote it was about the puff pieces, the ones that made people just see a product or make them laugh. But I never wanted to ruffle the feathers, or make waves in a stagnant water. But I am coming to learn I am the Thunder people say I am… and it’s ok. I just need to know when to start becoming loud. I don’t need to be quiet, I definitely don’t need to be quiet because it makes others uncomfortable… at least that is definitely not a lesson I teach my kids.

I tell them to talk, and express opinions, to debate me if they feel confident to do so, also to read the hell out of the rooms and situations they are in because I didn’t just have children, I birthed future adults and they need to get ready to love themselves when I won’t be in the room. I need to love myself like I teach them to do for themselves. I need to never apologize for who I am… I always seem to need to explain my strong opinions, my view points, my positions. In honour of loving myself, and honouring my word this year of WORTH, I will accept myself, love myself and be ok with the fact that others might not love me and that will be ok because I will love myself enough for all of them.