It's an unfamiliar feeling, being grateful for one's asthma.

Year after year, my constricted airways have punished me with a propensity for minor colds to take up residence in my chest and turn into full-blown bronchitis. They've made exercise difficult and the winter months a battle between being able to breathe and being able to spend any time in the great outdoors.

I'm luckier than many — my asthma is controlled with an inhaler and awareness of my triggers.

Still, years of secondhand smoke exposure have made the past year particularly terrifying. I know what my lungs are like on a cold and windy day as I gasp for breath. I can't imagine their state if COVID-19 were to move into my body.

But there it is on the coronavirus vaccine eligibility list: asthma.

Seeing it there the first time, I breathed a sigh of relief the deepest the muscles of my bronchial tubes would allow.

Yes, I want the vaccine. Yes, I know it's brand-new and was rushed out by scientists in labs. Yes, I know it has side effects.

COVID-19 has side effects too, and for people with asthma, the risks of a severe case are heightened. Otherwise healthy people have been hospitalized. Some didn't make it home.

We're in strange times, this we all know. We're unable to hug family or see friends, unable to run simple errands without protective protocols, and we're struggling to keep it all together.

And now those of us who have been most afraid of a virus taking over our bodies have found ourselves being almost grateful for our risk factors as it gets us closer to a safe port in the storm.

Strange times indeed.