Five Minutes That Belong Only To You

Someone else is watching the baby.

A partner. A parent. A friend. A kind neighbour. Someone said the words you needed to hear: go, I have got this. And now you are here. Alone. For five minutes. Maybe ten if you are lucky.

This is not much time. But it is yours. And you are going to treat it like the precious thing it is.

First, do nothing. I mean it. Do not check your phone. Do not tidy something. Do not use these minutes to be productive. You have been productive every waking second for weeks. Right now, the most radical thing you can do is stop.

Sit down. Or lie down. Or lean against a wall. Whatever your body needs. Let gravity have you. Let your muscles unclench, starting with your face. Your jaw. Your forehead. That permanent tension between your eyebrows.

Breathe. Not the shallow, automatic breathing you have been doing all day. A real breath. The kind that fills your belly. The kind where you can feel your ribs expand. The kind that makes your shoulders drop two inches.

In through the nose. Count to four.

And out through the mouth. Slowly. Like you are deflating everything that has been wound too tight.

Do it again. There is no rush. There is nowhere to be. For five minutes, nobody needs you. That sentence might be the most beautiful sentence you have heard in weeks.

Nobody needs you.

Not right now. Right now, you are just a person. With a body. Breathing. Resting. Existing without purpose for one hundred and eighty seconds.

What does your body want? Not what does it need. What does it want? Maybe it wants to close its eyes. Let them close. Maybe it wants to stretch. Stretch. Maybe it wants to feel warm water on the hands, or cold air on the face, or the simple sensation of bare feet on a floor.

Give it one small thing. The smallest kind of care. A glass of water drunk slowly. A face splashed with cool water. A stretch that reaches somewhere that has been folded in on itself all day.

You will go back soon. The baby will need you again. The endless, beautiful, exhausting cycle will resume. But right now, in this tiny window, you remembered something important.

You are not just a parent. You are also a person. A person who existed before the baby. A person who will exist alongside the baby. A person who deserves, at minimum, five minutes a day to be nothing more than themselves.

Guard these minutes. They are not selfish. They are survival. They are what keeps you able to keep going. To keep giving. To keep being the person that small human needs.

One more breath. Deep. Slow.

Yours.

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