Welcome to my favorite season. Spring. I love spring. (Don’t tell summer, fall and winter.)

Spring brings a bonanza of light and warmth and a heady feeling of positivity knowing there’s a lot more where that came from. Knowing that this season, there are oodles of firsts to look forward to.

Out of the dark muck, as if by magic– poof!– the first sprouts of grass pop up, turning–abrakadabra!–into a carpet of emerald green. There are the first buds on the trees. The first leaves.

The first flowers that shower us with a bounty of color–from bright-as-the-sun daffodils to the buffet of tulips to the heavenly scented lilacs.

Then there are the bluebells. A few years ago, for the first time in my life, I spotted an entire field of bluebells. It’s not hyperbole to say it was a nature show worthy of public television.

There’s the first robin. The first bicycle ride. The first picnic. The first time outdoors sans the necessary winter equipment–gloves, scarf, boots, puffy jacket, long underwear. Spring. I mean, what’s not to love!?

After a year unlike any other, a year filled with fear, grief and anxiety, it’s fitting that the arrival of COVID vaccines should coincide with the season of firsts.

This spring, we will also experience an additional set of firsts. For me, it will be the first time in a year, I will stroll through the grocery store minus the feeling that I’m taking my life in my own hands.

I’ll take my first trip to Aldi, Walmart, Mariano’s, Dollar Tree and an array of other stores that are outside my bubble of necessity shops.

For the first time, I will venture inside the public library, instead of picking up my books curbside, where the cheery folks who work there will place your picks in your trunk.

I’ll get a haircut. In a salon.

I’ll take public transportation. Or maybe not.

Still, there’s so much more to look forward to this spring, perhaps, more than any other. For the first time in a year, I will eat in a restaurant. I’ll meet a friend at Starbucks.

I will set foot into the home of my sister and brother-in-law. And for first time in twelve excruciatingly loooong months, I will hug them.

I know not everyone has received their vaccines yet, but everybody who wants them will, hopefully, get them soon.

This spring, thanks to the COVID vaccine, there is so much for which to be grateful, including the things that we once took for granted.

My advice: savor these things, these seemingly small moments, these seemingly teensy events. I once took them for granted. Not anymore.