Here’s the thing about waiting for the sunrise or the sunset: you can devote your whole self to it by plopping down in a chair, drink in hand, eyes locked on the horizon like it’s the world’s slowest Broadway show and somehow, you’ll still miss it. The universe is a prankster like that.

You sit there, feeling all purposeful, meditative even. You tell yourself, “I will watch this sunrise. I will not blink. I will witness majesty.” And then? Blink. It’s up. Boom. Like it had an express elevator. One second it’s dark; the next second, you’re squinting, wondering if you just lost a staring contest with the cosmos.

Sunsets are no better. You think you have time. The sky gets a little pink, a little orange. You look down for literally two seconds, maybe to answer a text or to shoo the dog off the couch,  and when you look back? Darkness. Curtain closed. Thanks for playing.

It’s not gradual, not this cinematic fade you were promised in poems and postcards. No. It’s a smash cut from day to night. The kind of editing that would get a movie director fired.

And yet we keep trying. Because maybe that’s the point. The sun doesn’t care if you’re ready. It doesn’t slow down because you made the effort. It zips up and down on its own terms, a daily reminder that the big stuff in life doesn’t happen when we say so. It happens when it damn well pleases.

So maybe missing it is the ritual. The not-quite-catching-it is what keeps us coming back, camped on porches and rooftops, chasing a trick of light that knows how to slip right past us. The sunrise and the sunset are the great cosmic Houdini act. And we’re all sitting there, eyes peeled, pretending we’ve got the upper hand.