Boredom Takes Center Stage

When she was well, my mom shared her words of brilliance... little gems of wisdom that she picked up along her sad and difficult life. I was glad to have loved her in the unconditional way that she taught me, judging not lest I be judged. One of the things that stuck with me growing up, was when in the heart of the summer and I had few friends to pal around with (I was a bookish loner back then) I would lament... mom I'm sooo bored. She would laugh and give me the choice of various chores, as most moms did back then, but she offered me some words of advice as well. "Wendy, what most people don't know is that the bulk of life is mostly boredom, we each get a small chuck of joy on one end, and a small chunk of sorrow on the other end and what is in the middle is the great expanse of living which is boredom. This includes loneliness and contentment in equal measures. It is not so important that we avoid this state of being, it is how we choose to make use of this state that makes a life worth living." In my interpretation I see now that usually boredom is contentment... without the judgements of the past or the wishes of the future. Why then is it such a hard state to maintain in the positive? I wish my mom was still in her sound mind to tell me.