Do You Have Like Three Minutes?

There’s a certain kind of moment I keep chasing. You know the one. The kind that lands softly but lingers, stretches time in a way that feels generous. It just quietly takes its place, leaving you with a sense of warmth you didn’t expect. It’s stepping outside just as the wind shifts, feeling like the city is in on something you don’t know yet. It’s walking home a different way for no reason and stumbling upon the exact smell of your childhood kitchen drifting out of a restaurant you’ll never go into. It’s passing a conversation between strangers that makes you smile for the rest of the day.  It’s realizing, halfway through telling a story, that someone is actually listening—not just waiting for their turn to talk, but really there with you.

But more often than not, I miss these moments entirely. I steamroll through them, head down, already constructing the next five minutes, the next email, the next thing that will make me feel like I’m moving forward. I look at something beautiful and immediately wonder if I should take a picture of it, as if my own eyes aren’t enough. I skim conversations for the part that requires a response, barely registering the rest. It’s embarrassing to admit how much I do this. How much of life I treat like something to be managed rather than something to be inside of.

I want to be better at small things. I want to have more space between thoughts. So lately, I’ve been trying to approach things differently. To hold onto moments the way a good song holds onto its last note—just a little longer than expected. To let time stretch instead of compressing it into something useful. To notice more. The nothing-special details that make a day feel like a day instead of a blur. The way someone’s expression softens when they realize you’re paying attention. The rhythm of shoes against pavement when a whole street seems to be walking in sync. The exact shade of light right before sun going down, when everything looks like it belongs in a memory.

I’ve also started calling people again. Just short, ordinary calls that start the same way every time: Do you have like three minutes? It’s a soft entry point, a way of saying, I know you have things to do, and I’m not here to derail them. But it’s never three minutes. It never is. The conversation opens up, stretches, takes on a shape of its own. Five minutes, fifteen, sometimes a lot more.

And no one, not once, has ever said, You’ve ruined my day. No one has ever acted like I tore something important apart by calling instead of texting. In fact, most of the time, you can hear it in the voice—the way they settle into the conversation, let out a breath they didn’t know they were holding, lean into the space we’ve suddenly made for each other. It’s not a disruption. It’s a reminder. That we can just… talk. That we don’t have to schedule every exchange or keep things brief or be afraid of taking up each other’s time. That time given freely is the best kind of time.

And maybe that’s the whole thing—learning how to be where I actually am. Not constantly rewinding to some lost moment or spinning forward to some better version of now. Just reminding yourself how to like things without needing them to be so important. How to appreciate a good coffee, a well-timed joke, the exact right song playing at the exact right time, without needing to turn it into something bigger. How to stop treating life like something that needs to be improved, or explained, or filled.

So if I ever call you out of the blue, don’t be alarmed. It just means I was thinking about you, and for once, I didn’t let the thought slip away. You’ve made it into my life, even for just a few minutes, for good.

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