I awake to my alarm clock screaming through the darkness.

The sound pounds unforgivingly on my eardrums, and I feel tired.

Tired because the sleep never recharged my body, like a phone trying to squeeze the last bit of life from a broken charger.

Why! Why! Why! I plead through the silent morning, blood bubbling from frustration.

And it is in that precise moment that I remember why.

Every new day is a gift so beautiful it can never be tarnished.

Every new day is a chance to love, and be loved, to laugh and make new memories. 

Every new day I am able to grow, and build, and flourish like a flower in the gleaming sun.

It is not the ease with which one wakes in the morning, but the energy one puts in to capturing the day.

I sit groggy, eyelids drooping, still feeling the effects of the Sand Man's magic.

I feel awful. 

And yet I'm smiling. 

Today will be the best yet.

I know it.