Breath

Breath
Stop thinking, start breathing By Jawad Yousofi. For my mother, who gave me my first breath. You have taken thousands of breaths today, and thanked not one of them. One. Breath is the gateway to life. It carries you through your day, your night, your whole life. It is the one companion that never leaves. Two. Unlike us, it never sleeps and never takes a break. If it did, we wouldn’t be here. It never nags, never complains, never asks for anything. It is the kind of love that is meant for life: quiet, steady, and asking nothing in return. When everything else falls apart, it is still there. Three. From the first breath to the last, and everything in between, it is there. You can lean on it. In a few seconds it can steady you, carry you somewhere calmer, like a bird’s song at dawn. Four. Most of us spend our days reaching for a tomorrow that never quite arrives, sure that the thing we are missing is somewhere ahead. But the one thing holding us up is already here, moving in and out, asking for nothing. Five. What would I do without you? My life is tied to your rhythm, pumping oxygen through my veins and into every cell. If you stopped, even for a fraction of a second, I would be gone. Six. I confess I take you for granted, so many heartbeats a day. I am nothing without you, and everything with you, as you sustain me effortlessly through this journey called life. Seven. Carry me, then. You already know the way. Eight. Watch a small child breathe, or an animal at rest. No one taught them. No one had to. The breath knows how to carry a life long before the mind learns a single word for it. Nine. You cannot hold it and you cannot save it. Each breath is given once, used once, and let go. Maybe that is the quiet lesson in it: everything worth having moves through you, it was never meant to be kept. Ten. There is something almost slippery about it. The moment you try to hold it and understand it, it slips away. Maybe it is not meant to be understood. Maybe it is only meant to be trusted. Pause. Close your eyes. Breathe in, slowly. Breathe out, slower. Now thank this one.