At first, it didn’t seem like anything unusual. She’d wake up, turn her head, and feel that same familiar stiffness again. Some mornings it was just a dull ache. Other times it felt tight enough to make getting out of bed oddly uncomfortable. It wasn’t severe. Just annoying. And because it kept happening in small ways, it was easy to explain away. Maybe she had slept in a strange position. Maybe it was stress. Maybe it was just one of those things that starts happening more often with age and slowly becomes part of the routine.
That’s what made it so easy to ignore. After all, a lot of people wake up with little aches and stiffness here and there. Most don’t immediately assume there’s a specific reason behind it. But over time, it became harder not to notice. Because it wasn’t random anymore. It kept showing up in the same place, in the same way, often first thing in the morning.
And once she finally realized what might actually be behind it, the answer felt almost embarrassingly obvious.