I watched 28 Days Later the other night.
If you haven’t seen it, it’s basically a heartwarming story about extremely angry zombies chasing people.
I enjoy relaxing movies.
Some people watch romantic comedies before bed.
Apparently I prefer civilization collapsing.
To each his own.
But afterward, I couldn’t stop thinking about zombies.
Not the eating-people part.
That would make this a very different essay.
I kept thinking about the idea of walking around while already dead.
And then I had an uncomfortable thought.
Maybe zombie movies aren’t as unrealistic as we think.
Because I wonder how many of us are doing exactly that.
Not dead.
Just…not entirely alive either.
We get up.
Make coffee.
Check our phones.
Go to work.
Come home.
Scroll through strangers apparently having better lives than we are.
Sleep.
Repeat.
Congratulations.
It’s the next day…
Our hearts are beating.
Our calendars are full.
We’re functioning.
And functioning can look remarkably similar to living if you don’t examine it too closely.
That’s the scary part.
Most of us don’t dramatically give up on life.
We slowly negotiate with it.
We stop dreaming because dreaming feels childish.
Stop trying because disappointment hurts.
We answer “How are you?” with “Busy,” as though busyness were an emotional state.
Eventually, we become incredibly efficient at maintaining lives we’re not particularly enjoying.
We call it adulthood.
Maybe that’s why kids seem so alive.
A child can spend twenty minutes watching an ant carry a Cheerio.
Adults need a Caribbean vacation and late checkout before admitting we feel “somewhat refreshed.”
Kids still expect something wonderful might happen today.
Somewhere along the way, many of us started hoping nothing inconvenient would.
And slowly, we settle.
Not necessarily for terrible lives.
Sometimes we settle for perfectly respectable ones.
A relationship we stopped being curious about.
A dream permanently scheduled for “someday.”
A life that looks fine from the outside.
Fine is sneaky like that.
Nobody holds an intervention because you’re fine.
We don’t abandon our lives.
We simply become spectators of them.
I know because I’ve done it too.
And strangely, some of the moments when I feel most alive now are almost embarrassingly ordinary.
Coming home to Erin.
Sadie and Abbey insisting I watch something that apparently cannot wait another second.
Rosie and Benji greeting me like I’ve returned from combat instead of work.
Walking the dogs.
Laughing at my bad jokes.
Being somewhere without wondering where I should be next.
Nothing impressive.
Nothing worth posting.
Just life.
Which makes me wonder if we’ve misunderstood what being alive is supposed to feel like.
Maybe it isn’t constant happiness. Maybe it isn’t success. Maybe it isn’t finally getting everything arranged exactly the way we wanted.
Maybe it’s simply being awake enough to notice your own life while you’re still in it.
Because I think most of us have a cemetery somewhere.
Something we lost or disappointed us. Something that ended before we were ready.
And not everything buried needs to come back.
Some dreams should die. Some doors should stay closed.
But sometimes something in our life dies, and because we loved it so much, we climb into the grave beside it.
One thing ends and suddenly we stop beginning.
We turn disappointment into identity.
Survival into living.
Maybe we’ve been sitting in that cemetery so long we’re starting to receive mail there.
And maybe the question isn’t how to get our old life back.
Maybe it’s much simpler.
What in your life still makes you feel alive?
Not productive or successful.
Alive.
Who makes you forget to check your phone?
What haven’t you done because someday keeps sounding more convenient than today?
When did you last laugh so hard you embarrassed yourself?
When did you last look at someone you love and actually look at them?
Those questions make me a little uncomfortable.
I suspect they’re supposed to.
Because someday every one of us really will die.
But maybe death isn’t the only way a life ends.
Maybe it can happen quietly.
One postponed dream, distracted dinner. One “maybe next time” or an ordinary weekday at a time.
Until eventually we become very responsible people with full calendars, charged phones and absolutely nowhere left we’re excited to go.
And that might be the most terrifying zombie movie of all.
So maybe tonight, don’t change your whole life. Just notice it.
The person beside you. The dog (or cat) waiting at the door.
Your kid saying, “Watch this.”
The sunset you almost walked past.
Because someday there will be a last weekday.
It would be a shame to discover we’d been practicing for it. 
Comments