I recently turned 23 and was asked a couple of times how I wanted to celebrate my birthday. I had a hard time coming up with ideas but the one thing that I was pretty sure that I wanted to do was to wake up at sunrise and hike at a state park. A couple of years back I was living as a missionary and I was staying at a guest house in Rhode Island with all of the other women who I was traveling with. We decided we wanted to wake up early and go see the sunrise above the ocean. This meant waking up a little after 5:00 a.m. putting on our shoes and driving 15 minutes to the beach. The men who we were traveling with had gone the day before, and the sunrise had been more lackluster than they were expecting. However, we decided that we wanted to give it a shot because we would regret it if it was beautiful and we had missed it. When we arrived at the beach we saw a sky absolutely on fire. The reds, oranges, and pinks were mixed together so beautifully and vibrantly it has seemed as if it was made just for us to see. We stopped by a coffee shop on the beach to grab some caffeine before we went home, and the Barista said that she had not seen a sunrise like it in a very long time.
Since then, whenever I’m on vacation it’s been a tradition of mine to wake up at least one day and watch the sunrise. I convinced my siblings to wake up with me when we were on vacation in Punta Cana with my parents, crawl out of bed and walk across a sleepy resort to watch the sunrise over the ocean. The only people around us were housekeepers preparing rooms. It was beautiful, but it wasn’t nearly as vibrant as the one I saw in Rhode Island. My siblings weren’t nearly as awestruck as I had been – and swiftly headed back to bed. But it was beautiful in it’s own more relaxing way, I certainly wasn’t disappointed. I wasn’t going to quickly abandon the whimsy that had been forcing myself out of a cozy bed by the potential of something great outside.
A couple days before my birthday, a burst of energy inspired me to attempt to convince my husband to drive hours with my to hike in the morning and see sunrise from somewhere beautiful and new. My gracious husband honored this wish of mine and we woke up at 5:45 a.m. with our 3-month-old so we could drive to hike White Water State Park. It was beautiful to be able to see the sun peak over the road as we drove, accidentally missing turns and speeding down empty highways, the sun had lit up the sky a pale yellow by the time we arrived. Still, the sun was only beginning to warm the air as rays over the hills and shine through the Autumn Leaves and in between the forest of trees. My husband was able to take out his camera and practice some photography, a hobby of his that has been more difficult to find time for over the years. The both of us, silently admiring the quiet world we had made time for. I found myself mostly admiring the man who was joyfully walking up switchbacks with a baby strapped to him, but that’s between us.
Although we were tired, we actually were surprised at how well we were doing on a smaller amount of sleep than we were used to having. Sometimes, I think you just need to surrender to the fact that in order to gain one thing, you sacrifice another. In order to watch the sunrise and be alone on a hike through the woods where we were able to get some peace and quiet, we sacrificed a little sleep. The greatest gift I received was getting to watch the sunrise on my 23rd year of life.
