Just Five Minutes

It goes without saying that as mothers, we love our children and (generally) enjoy spending time with them.

But I think it’s equally true that as mothers, there comes a time when what we REALLY want is just five minutes… by ourselves… in the bathroom.

Five minutes without someone needing a drink, a snack, a hug, a bandaid. Five minutes without hearing: “Preston hit me!” “Rylen bit me!” “Brekken won’t share!” “Haley is singing that song again!” (For the record, that song is currently “Call Me Maybe.”)

Since I have a job outside the house as well, you’d think I could get my five minutes of peace there. But I work in an office with 40-some people on my floor… the vast majority are women. And there’s just one bathroom. So on any given trip to the ladies’ room, you’re likely to bump into someone. And in our office culture, it’s considered perfectly acceptable to begin or continue a business conversation while you’re in the bathroom. So the five minutes turns into: “Hey, I’m glad I caught you! Have you had a chance to look at that document? Finish that presentation? Set up that meeting?”

So when a day comes, as it did today, when I get home from work just a little bit early, it’s a blissful thing. It’s not much time, just enough for a quick trip home to drop off my work bags and take five minutes… just five minutes… to go to the bathroom by myself.