The Boy Who Collected Mornings

When I was a kid, I met a boy who collected mornings.

That’s what he told me, anyway. He said it one summer day when we were sitting on the swings behind the old library, sharing a melted popsicle. I must’ve been nine. He was maybe a year older, the kind of boy who always seemed to know things no one else did.

“What do you mean, ‘collected’?” I asked.

He grinned, wiping orange sugar from his chin. “Every morning feels different. Some are blue and quiet. Some are gold and loud. I keep the best ones.”

I laughed, thinking it was pretend. “In what? A jar?”

He nodded, perfectly serious. “Exactly.”

He said he’d been doing it since he was five. Every time he felt a good morning — one that buzzed in his chest like music — he’d close his eyes, breathe it in, and save it somewhere only he could find.

Back then, I thought he was weird. But he was also kind. He never made fun of people, never joined in when others teased. He’d just smile, small and secret, like he knew something better was waiting after school.

That summer ended, like they all do. And when I came back the next year, the boy was gone. His family had moved away.

I forgot about him — mostly.

Until last year.

It was the middle of winter when the memory found me again. I was sitting in traffic on the way to work, half-listening to a podcast I didn’t care about, when sunlight hit the windshield in that specific, honey-colored way that only happens once in a while — the kind of light that feels like a whisper from another life.

For some reason, I thought of him. The boy who collected mornings.

It felt strange, remembering something so small so vividly. But it lingered all day — through the meetings, the emails, the grocery store lines.

That night, when I got home, I turned off all the lights and sat by the window. Outside, the city was quiet under snow. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what it would mean to collect a morning now — to hold a piece of time that had already passed.

And just like that, I remembered one.

The first morning after my father left.

I’d been too young to understand, but I remember the silence — heavy, like the world had swallowed sound. I’d sat on the porch steps, shivering in my pajamas, and watched the sun rise without knowing it was supposed to hurt.

I opened my eyes, feeling that same chill years later.

Then another morning came to me — one from college, when I’d stayed up all night writing poetry with friends. The sky had turned from navy to pale lavender, and we’d laughed about nothing until we were too tired to breathe.

And then another — the morning I got the call that my mother was gone. That one wasn’t beautiful, but it was real.

The more I remembered, the more I realized: maybe I’d been collecting mornings, too. I just hadn’t known it.

Since that night, I’ve started writing them down — the mornings that feel like something.

The one when I found a stray cat asleep on my car hood.

The one when my little sister called me just to say she was proud of me.

The one when I woke before my alarm, saw the first light spill across the floor, and felt… okay.

It’s strange how small things can save you.

Sometimes I wonder what happened to that boy. If he’s still out there, somewhere, storing golden light in invisible jars. Or maybe he grew up and forgot, like most of us do.

But I like to think he didn’t.

I like to think he wakes early still — maybe with a child of his own now — and breathes in the quiet before the world begins, capturing it gently before it fades.

Every morning, I step outside, no matter the weather. I take one deep breath and whisper, “This one’s for the jar.”

Because the truth is, time takes almost everything. But not this.

Not the mornings.

Those stay.

Somewhere — soft and bright and waiting.