Last Friday I played prisoner for the night, and not by choice– I was grounded (for crimes that will go unnamed). Locked in my room without wifi , I was left with a daunting challenge: be creative and find something to do to make time pass.

I thought I had it in the bag– I’m creative. I’m fun. Surely I can use my imagination to make this situation tolerable. I was wrong.

First, of course, I reached for my phone. I glided my fingers across my night stand, expecting to soon meet the familiar feel of an iPhone screen. But my hand got stood up. The phone was downstairs, patiently waiting for me on the kitchen table, which, felt worlds away. My laptop was underneath it.

My easy, effortless game of passing time? I was failing miserably. As I lay on my bed, trying to fathom how that much dust could collect on my chandelier, I was filled with the feeling that just about everyone constantly tries to avoid, taking great measures to not be caught in its wake: complete and utter boredom.

Sitting there at a loss of what to do next was foreign to me. No, I don’t go out every weekend, nor do I always have twenty friends around me. I do admit I usually have my phone on hand, though a reliable remedy for boredom.

As I sat on my bed, left to my own devices– which at that point consisted of only my imagination– I started visualizing song lyrics. It was like making up music videos in my head.

I began with “Landslide,” by Fleetwood Mac. I imagined my sister and me climbing mountains and picnicking under sunlight that sprinkled through the treetops.

Bizarre, I know, but I had no phone to play music and no TV to watch a movie, so I combined the two.

After the songs ran out, I started making up my own lyrics. Short verses of song floating through my mind, lyrics about my friends, tulips, and cheesecake. Others lines were about more serious topics like childhood and nostalgia.

Words, jumbled together. I barely remember half of them. They were also pretty bad– I’m not a songwriter, but I was lying in my bed at 9:00 on a Friday night with nothing else to do, so I became one.

My mind had to compensate for the lack of excitement that existed in the confines of my bedroom. So after the song lyrics, it was riddles. Then it was boat names. Eventually, I started thinking about my goals in life.

So many things–my stream of consciousness songs, my mental music videos–were all product of my boredom. And they were all original– no outside influences filtering my thoughts or editing my thinking. The short verses I do remember I now consider as little talismans that I keep with me. I go back to them if I feel stressed, lonely, or back to being bored.

Letting my mind ramble and trying to keep up was exciting. And it was new. All of a sudden, something weird was happening: I was kind of having fun– just paying attention to my train of thought, trying not to interfere. But then interfering and watching that train shift direction, moving me into unchartered territory. Fresh thoughts. Ideas flashing on and off like fireflies.

One thought: “Why don’t I do this more often?”

Boredom has a stigma that makes us all reach for our phones or remotes the second we can feel it coming. Ubiquitous platforms like Instagram and Snapchat are created with the sole purpose of displaying how much fun and excitement we’re having. As a generation, we are growing up to think that being bored is taboo.

On that Friday night, although a little unwilling at first, I finally surrendered, then embraced it. In the end, I was left with a warm, comforting bed of glowing embers, long tangled thoughts signifying myself. Ready to be reignited at anytime with just a little stir.

As a high school girl caught up in the ever shifting current of volleyball practice, school, homework, and my friends– those couple of hours, if just for a while, dammed those treacherous waters and made me still. Made me calm. In fact, it made me realize a lot about myself.

Then my mom opened the door, telling me that I could go downstairs. I told her thanks, but I’m gonna stay in my room for a little while longer.