"Do you find much has changed in a year?" 

An unspoken question, plainly put by the pair of frank green eyes that met mine, hung in the sleepily talkative air of a back-town diner far too early in the morning: What do you make of the changes?

I put down the coffee cup, cream-white and little bigger than a thimble, and suddenly made up my mind. I answered the spoken question. 

"No."

Her hands fumbled for the spoon, pretending to stir her coffee in a poorly concealed cover of surprise. "Oh," she said at last.

"There isn't any doubt in your mind that things have changed?" 

The spoon splashed back into the cup in frustration. "No. Should there be?"

"What sort of question is that?" I shoved the half-eaten plate away with a sudden energy. "Is that your new question?" 

"Yes. No. Wait," she grabbed a napkin and mopped up the puddle of spilled coffee. I had unnerved her today. I was not sorry for it. "Do I only get one?" 

"That might be one too many at this hour." It was a gripe, but a good-natured gripe, and the twist at the corners of her mouth showed that it was well-received.

"I just... I wish I could go back. I wish I could be younger, and more sheltered, and less... less. Carrying less. Responsible for less." 

"Back where? A year ago?" I could not help the caustic edge to my tone. "A year ago you were looking back a year before that. It always happens about this time of year. Weather it and get on with your life, I say."

"Oh, I don't know." She backed out of the train of thought suddenly, the way she only did when she half-knew her own meaning and was afraid of the sum. "But I do - I wish I could go back, a little. Somewhere. Where things were less precarious." 

"And where was that?" I was suddenly angry - angry enough to crumple a napkin and throw it at her face, which I did. "Where was your heart ever less precarious? Dearheart, you have ever been loved. Love is not security; to love is to be vulnerable, as Lewis would say. To have your heart wrung and possibly broken and all that. And you know that's not just romantic love, so you can't play that 'I've never been in love' card. It's across the board. You have family; you have fellowship; you have love; you have precariousness, or what I think you mean by precariousness, long before a year past. These are your words I am using."

"They cannot be my words." Her hands sheltered her face. It was not an effort to protect herself against further napkin-assaults. I wanted to shake her; I could not with my hands, so I glared until it came: "They cannot be mine, when I am so afraid..."

"Oh, you fool..." A chuckle broke from my lips and finished like a sob. "You stupid, stupid girl. Have you forgotten? You wrote that blessed blog entry a year ago. That blog really comes back to bite you, doesn't it?" 

"I don't remember..." 

"Ho ho! But you must. You are so accountable for everything you write, all your fine philosophies, and none the less so for your fine words about Jesus making all relationships beautiful and meaningful, however painful and difficult - and slogging through the realness of what's really real. All those times you have exclaimed over songs and poems extolling the beauty of little broken things over cards and flowers - and will you recant because you are a fool, because you are afraid? I should have expected better things; you wrote such nice articles!" I gave the words a gentle lilt of mockery before sending them home. "One expects more stamina and resolution from writers. Then again, one never knows - with blogs."

"It wasn't such a very strongly-worded post," She made a dreadful face from behind the poor shelter of hastily interwoven fingers: "...was it?" 

"Oh, I'm only vaguely referencing the end parts," I burst merrily, chortling at her unconscious squirm. "There's loads more fodder for a bit of perspective. But the end is the best; you'll love the end. That goes something like: May I never confuse the shadows of love for the real thing - Almighty God, who is Love unending and overflowing, Love bending and breaking and twisting and shaping and making All Things New. May I never see my life as empty or barren, when it is brimming over with the life and presence of this God who fills the hungry up with good things."

Her silence was palpable.

"Now let me ask you the same silly question you tried to ask me, only mine won't be as silly," I continued. "Do you find much has changed in a year?" 

"No," It was just a whisper, but it was enough. At last, her hands descended, fingers spiriting away a few renegade tears. "Unless - I think I am just as hungry, if not hungrier." 

"I think He must be just as good - if not better, simply because you are hungrier."

"But what am I to do?" Sorrow stripped her tone of volume. "What am I to do with all this? I have too much heart, and such a foolish, froward one at that! I shall always be hungry - always hungry, and eating the wrong things, and never eating enough - oh, too hungry and never hungry enough! Shall I run in circles for the rest of my days?"

"In spirals," I quipped. "In a spiral, which - "

" - which is the best way to run," she finished, and humour broke in her eyes like a sunset after a storm.

"Anna!" I burst, suddenly desperate to take hold of whatever was brewing in her heart and dispel it. "Anna, don't you see? It's only when you try your own love that you find it precarious. That sort of self-love will be broken; He won't have it, and it is a fearful place to stand - but even such fear holds hope, because you are not forgotten. Your loves will never fill you for a second, yet you are filled - and both because you are loved. He fills the hungry up with good things. Oh, soul, soul, Anna-soul, don't lie to yourself, not when there is such truth to be had. Love your God."

She did not answer, but as she finished her coffee there played a mirth about her eyes graver than tears, and the dawn sang amidst the damp salt on her face.