Hope doesn't ask you to be ready. In a long winter, you forget you're allowed to feel anything. You make peace with the gray. You start calling it home. Then something shifts. Not the cold. The cold stays. Just an extra hour of light. A softening of the wind. And without your permission, something inside you starts to open. You didn't earn this. You didn't decide to feel it. It came back on its own. That's how hope works. It doesn't wait for you to deserve it. It shows up — and asks you to notice.