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In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Symbol.”

An image of the sunrise taken by Amelia. Taken on an iPhone 6.

Yes, a sunrise can be quite typical, but I love sunrises. And yes, I did take take this picture. Now, before you jump to conclusions, yes, I am a book blogger so why didn’t I post a book as my symbol? Well, my readers already know what that means to me so why post something so obvious in relation to me? Why not something new?

I recently went away with some friends to LBI, an island in the Atlantic off the coast of New York City for my international readers, and a few of us decided to see the sunrise. Now, during the summer, the sun rises at about 5:30 or so in the morning so we had to haul ourselves out of bed at 5 am on the dot. We were already exhausted from the long drive down and from being in the sun the day before. To say we were tired was an understatement. But, we did it anyway, carefully setting the alarms so that we’d be up in time. We dragged ourselves out of the motel room and down to the shore and waited.

Time went on and slowly the sky started to change colors, shifting from the dark blue to the purple, then going into a light red and slowly the sun came over the horizon. My friends and I just sat there, taking pictures but mostly just enjoying sitting and watching the sun rise together. It’s incredible to watch a star rise as fast as it does, at its size, and within minutes it was above the horizon.

Sunrises are fleeting and beautiful, but they happen every day. It’s a common thing of every day life but most people never see it. You live in a city, you may see the sun rising but you see it come up above the horizon over the buildings, but by the ocean there is nothing but miles and miles of water out there and that’s something special. You feel yourself waking up with the sun. At 5 am we were all dead tired, but as soon as we felt the warmth from the sun hitting our faces after it left the horizon and the heat started to rise, we were awake and alert, the birds flying around and back to their shenanigans once again.

A sun rises every day but people take it for granted and don’t actually think about it. It’s an every day thing like eating breakfast or brushing our teeth.

Sure, my friends and I could have stayed in bed to sleep for another few hours, but how many times in your life, truly, do you take some time to just stop and watch the sun rise, in a pure location with nothing but the sound of silence, or maybe waves, crashing.

Many people don’t go to see sunrises as it’s too early to rise. But it’s something everyone should do. It’s a peaceful time and a time when it’s just you, maybe those around you, and nothing else. As the sun came up, all of us just watched the sun and smiled. We had laughed and played the day before and were going to later in the day, probably argue as well, but in this moment, it was silence and peaceful and it was beautiful.

This symbol to me reminds me not to take the small things in life for granted. Until you see it purely, you don’t realize what you are missing out on! Sure, it’s a constant, but when you take time to break down that ‘constant’ and see it for what it truly it, you don’t realize how much it can actually mean to you.