Reflections from a zombie girl.

The wine sparkled, the sun glowed, and laughter came easy out on the back deck. I felt myself exhale, even as conversation drifted into deeper waters. There are few people I trust to hold the complexities of my life, and fewer still whom I can speak to without the weight of wondering if my own doubts will be too heavy for them.

 It felt so sweet to be with Janet again. To talk unguarded again.“I keep needing to remind myself that the woman I was a year ago died. I am different today, and I don’t even know in how many ways yet.”

Sometimes resurrection is long and slow. Not less beautiful, but a hard kind of beautiful.

As I poured out my stories to my friend, I confessed that sometimes I’m not sure if I’m being loyal to life or fearful of death in the choices I make.

“I don’t always know if I act out of bravery and goodness, or if it is simply a flight from the overwhelming unknown of a fresh start. I keep reading these different theologians who talk about the importance of feeling death before declaring resurrection. Have I done that?”

We walked through the question together, marking where it felt like such a big theme in this life we all live as part of a broken earth, till Janet said, “Katy, you know what life feels like.”

She said it as if we were talking about True North, and I guess in a sense we were.

Just because I have changed, just because I don’t fit together in quite the same way I once did, doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten what full life feels like.

 Sometimes, I still falter in pursuing the “right life” instead of a full one.

The right life—where everything is black or white, good or bad, yes or no. When I chase the right life, I tend to create a lot of panic for myself, because what if I’m not right? Well then I’m wrong, and I’m screwing this whole thing up.

But a full life? I can feel full life down deep in my bones. It comes when my whole heart is invested in my choices, whether those choices pan out or not. A full life means I don’t shield myself from any emotion, any hope, any dream, or any heartbreak. I live believing anything is possible, and I live believing that love always wins.

Maybe I’m more resurrected than I realized.