There’s a particular kind of quiet that settles in during the final stretch of winter. Not the peaceful kind—the heavy kind. The kind that lingers in my chest, dulls my thoughts, and makes even simple things feel just a little harder than they should be. Days blur together. I start to forget what it feels like to move through life with lightness.

And then, almost imperceptibly at first, something shifts.

The air softens. The sun lingers a little longer in the evenings. I notice the smallest green shoot pushing through the dirt, stubborn and certain. It doesn’t happen all at once—it never does—but one day I step outside and realize the world is breathing again. And somehow, so am I.

Spring doesn’t just arrive in the world around us. It arrives within us.