February 14th, 2026
During the pandemic, people had to get COVID-19 vaccinations and booster shots. My second booster shot hurt my left shoulder so much it kept me from sleeping. I discovered that if I ever laid down, my shoulder would hurt, but if I sat straight up, my shoulder would hurt a little less. So on that night after I got my booster shot, I ended up spending the night sitting straight up and awake. I tried to sleep while sitting up, and it worked from time to time, but once I started to lose consciousness and naturally drift into a fetal position, my shoulder pain would wake me up because I was laying down again. And it would go like this throughout the night until the sunrise came.
But just before the sunrise, the birds began to chirp. It was a beautiful sound, a sound I had never heard before because truthfully I never cared to notice but also because this was the first time I had been awake before the sun. It was the first time I had truly experienced the morning, and it was beautiful.
I brought up a chair to sit closer to the window to take a look at the birds chirping these sounds, but instead I got to see a world that was just waking up. The light gray sky with a bluish hue, the neighbor’s porch lights, still on from the night before, the neighborhood basketball hoop that had watched a generation grow up, still as it enjoyed its retirement. It was a beautiful sight to see, the world that was stirring awake along with the sunrise.
So I opened the window and the world in all its beauty and nature came rushing in with the smell of fresh air. The air that I had never noticed, even though I’d been outside before. It was more refreshing than the deepest slumber. More refreshing than taking a shower underneath a hidden waterfall in the forest. I felt like I could trace the source of the smell back to the exact tree it originated from- okay that’s overdoing it lol.
But regardless, staying cooped up inside a house for nearly 1.5 years during the pandemic made me realize just how much I took nature for granted. What I heard, saw, and felt. The bird song, sunrise, and fresh air.