Start Dancing in Your Kitchen

Angela Youngblood

Fill Your Bucket

Our-Pact-super-sponsorEvery Friday morning before the kids leave for the bus stop we crank up the music and have a dance party in the kitchen. The little kids are all arms and legs flailing to the beat. One of them is really good at the doing the Worm across the floor. The older kids have become a little more reluctant and guarded, but I see them quietly shake a shoulder or nod their head to the music.

After the kids leave for school, the dance party doesn’t stop. Actually, my dance party never really stops ever. I like to introduce myself as a freelance writer/stay-at-home mother/dance floor starter. Sometimes the dance floor is a friend’s wedding or charity event, sometimes it’s my kitchen.

I’ve always loved to dance. My idols growing up were the Solid Gold dancers. I dreamed of going to the school on the TV show Fame so Debbie Allen could be my tough, but loving dance teacher. I performed my own choreographed dances (to Flashdance, duh!) in my elementary school talent show and was always in the center of the circle at the after-school dances in junior high.

There wasn’t a beat that I didn’t love or a move I wouldn’t try. I not only loved the feeling of dancing, but I also loved how it made people smile or laugh or dance with me.

Once I became a mother, I danced when nothing else worked. When the kids were babies there were so many moments of feeling sort of overwhelmed and uncertain about a lot of life. They needed me all the time. Holding, feeding, changing, entertaining and rocking and making it all better. It was exhausting and sometimes no matter what I did, the babies would cry. In those overwhelmed, exhausted, nothing is working moments, I would start dancing. I cranked up the music in my kitchen and danced. Sometimes the babies would stop crying and laugh or bounce along in their high chairs. Sometimes they wouldn’t. But I always felt better, more relaxed.

Years later when I started posting my kitchen dances on social media, I felt like I was back in the circle at the junior high dances. People left comments saying they were dancing in their kitchens too and that the dances “made them smile” and it “made their day.”

Dancing is about relaxing and letting go and moving and being free. Dancing is about joy and self-expression and not over-thinking. Dancing is a way to do all of that, and maybe help make people smile and want to dance along or at least shake a shoulder or nod their head to the music.

There are so many reasons to feel bad and worried and upset. Life is complicated, parenthood can be overwhelming and personhood can be sad. Dancing won’t fix any problems, but it helps you escape them for a song or two.

Dancing is my reset button, my bucket-filler, my balancer, my escape, my reminder of how something as simple as moving to a good beat in my kitchen can make me feel so much better.

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This post was written by Angela Youngblood exclusively for BonBon Break Media, LLC.

Angela is a mom of four who documents their imperfect, often hilarious adventures on her personal blog, Jumping With My Fingers Crossed. She has also written for Mamalode and What To Expect. Angela is the co-producer of Listen To Your Mother Metro Detroit. She is a storyteller, runner, dreamer, doer and kitchen dancer.