RESURRECTION

I didn’t believe in resurrection.

For a very long time, I felt like my heart was lifelessly splattered on a hot black piece of pavement. I was certain that events along my path would destroy me. They’ve destroyed some things, for sure. But I know, and you know, and every animal and plant and living thing on this planet knows, that some things end to make room for new life.

Sometimes I think it's magic–the restoration we’re capable of. Reinvention and adaptation seem to be hiding in our bones, opportunists patiently awaiting their moment to emerge. Heartbreak can’t kill what’s always waiting in reserve and trauma can’t cauterize that reservoir of love and hope and possibility sitting deep down in the basement of our guts, quietly praying to be found again.

Sometimes it feels like I’m living backward and forward in time simultaneously, honoring one side by dancing with the other. Choosing to love and choosing to dance is the hard part though, because there’s great risk in falling and losing and being awkward and devastated. A lot of the time it’s terrifying. Shitstormy. But I believe there’s a choice to be made in being weathered by the things that happen to us, or being wisened by them.

I want to be wisened.

I live each day with a deep knowing that at any moment this could all be over and I want to hold the people I love closer for it. I know this is all so temporary. I know that in a short time, this will be a long time ago.

I believe in the resurrection of trampled spirits and beat down, broken hearts. I believe that it’s possible to live backward and forward in time, honoring one side by dancing with the other, knowing love waits patiently to be brought back into vital form again and again and again.

Tailgating on an old dirt road somewhere in Montana. Photo by Camrin Dengel