Back in January of 2021, one of my best good friends, Abby, and I decided to chase a sunrise.
No planning. No itinerary. Just two girls who thought it would be a good idea to drive to Asheville, stay in a hostel, and wake up before dawn to watch the sun rise over the Blue Ridge Mountains. At twenty years old, that was enough of a reason to go.
It was a strange time in the world. COVID was still very much a part of everyday life. Masks covered our faces, we kept our distance from one another, and every conversation seemed to carry the weight of uncertainty. The Black Lives Matter movement had pushed our country into necessary conversations about race and justice, and the world felt heavy in a way that’s difficult to describe unless you lived through it. Everyone seemed to be carrying something.
I went into that trip expecting a beautiful sunrise. What I didn’t expect was that it would quietly become one of the most defining moments of my life.
I remember standing in the cold, waiting for the sky to change. Slowly, people began arriving. Cars kept pulling into the parking lot until the overlook was filled with people from all over. Individuals. Couples wrapped in blankets. Families. Hikers with cameras hanging around their necks. None of us knew one another, yet somehow we had all ended up in the same place for the same reason.
As the first light began to peek over the Blue Ridge Mountains, something happened that I’ve never forgotten.
Everyone got quiet.
Not because someone asked them to.
Because they wanted to.
For a few minutes, complete strangers stood shoulder to shoulder in silence, witnessing something none of us could hold onto. The sunrise belonged to all of us, yet none of us could keep it.
I don’t even know if I can accurately describe what I felt.
Yes, it was one of the most beautiful sunrises I’ve ever seen.
But it wasn’t the sunrise that moved me.
It was the gathering.
It was the realization that hundreds of people had left their warm beds before five in the morning simply to experience something beautiful together. There we all were, wearing masks, unable to see one another’s full faces, coming from different places, carrying different stories, yet choosing to witness the exact same moment. For just a little while, everything else seemed to disappear.
That morning became one of my favorite memories. Not because of where I was, but because of how I felt.
Years passed, as they always do.
College ended. Careers began. Responsibilities quietly found their way into every corner of life. Somewhere between calendars, deadlines, and trying to keep up with adulthood, I never forgot that morning in Asheville.
But I think I forgot the feeling it gave me.
Lately, I’ve caught myself wondering where that version of me went. The one who would happily drive five hours for a sunrise simply because it sounded beautiful. The one who believed experiences were reason enough to interrupt ordinary life.
Am I not chasing sunrises anymore?
Or have I just convinced myself there are more important things to do?
I don’t know.
Maybe this is just what growing up feels like.
I think that’s part of the reason writing has felt so hard lately. It’s a strange thing to admit because I’ve always felt like writing was where I made sense of the world. The inspiration is still there. I notice everything. I feel everything. I leave conversations thinking about them for days. I’ll hear one lyric and suddenly have an entire story playing out in my head.
So why have the words become so much harder to find?
I’ve asked myself if I’m just too busy. If I’m putting too much pressure on myself. If maybe this is simply a season where life is moving faster than I can process it.
But underneath all of those questions is another one that I’ve been almost afraid to ask.
Am I slowly losing the parts of myself that have always made me… me?
Then, I found myself standing in a stadium with forty thousand people watching Noah Kahan. I expected a great concert. I expected to lose my voice. I expected to leave with blurry videos that I’ll probably never watch again.
What I didn’t expect was to cry. At one point, I stopped singing.I just listened.
Forty thousand voices filled the stadium. Some perfectly on pitch. Others screaming every lyric without a care in the world. Friends wrapped their arms around each other. Parents stood beside their kids. Couples swayed together. Complete strangers sang with the same kind of conviction, all carrying completely different lives but somehow knowing the exact same words.
It was loud, but somehow it felt peaceful.
And all at once, I was back on that mountain in Asheville.
The feeling was exactly the same.
Awe.
Not because of the artist. Not because of the sunrise. Because of the people.
It hit me that what has stayed with me all these years was never really the sunrise itself. It was what happened around it. It was the quiet understanding that, despite all of our differences, we still crave the same things. We want to witness beauty. We want to celebrate. We want to grieve. We want to feel understood. We want to belong.
Maybe that’s why gathering feels so sacred.
Whether it’s a sunrise, a concert, a wedding dance floor, a church service, a protest, or simply a dinner table with people you love, there is something profoundly human about choosing to experience life together. For a little while, we stop being strangers. We stop being job titles or political opinions or people rushing from one obligation to the next.
We’re just people.
Together.
And maybe that’s what I’ve been missing.
Not Asheville.
Not the spontaneity.
Not even chasing sunrises.
I’ve been missing that feeling of collective awe—the kind that reminds you your life is woven together with thousands of others. The kind that pulls your feet back down to earth and reminds you that this is what being human feels like.
Maybe that’s why writing has felt so difficult. I’ve been searching for words when what I’ve really been searching for is wonder.
Last night reminded me that wonder still exists.
It exists wherever people decide to gather.
It exists around dinner tables where stories are told for the hundredth time. It exists in stadiums filled with people singing until they lose their voices. It exists on mountaintops before sunrise. It exists anywhere people choose to put down their phones, show up, and experience something together.
I don’t know if I’ll ever become the twenty-year-old who would leave on a whim to chase another sunrise.
Maybe I won’t.
Maybe growing up isn’t about losing wonder.
Maybe it’s about remembering where to find it.
And if these last five years have taught me anything, it’s this:
I used to think I was chasing sunrises.
Now I think I’ve been chasing the feeling of gathering all along.
So much love,
Emi Sue
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