I truly believe that on a spiritual, existential level I am cursed romantically. It works for everyone else. It happens for everyone else. Why can't I just give up already? Why does it have to hurt like hell? How can I possibly keep losing? And yet, here I am.

I am not looking for pity or sympathy. I am quarantined alone and this is my seemingly only outlet so I'm just gonna let myself go here. *clears throat*

The last few years have been a time of reckoning. A wake up call that: guess what? Life's not fair and it doesn't always work out the way you dream it will. I always thought I'd get married in my 20s. Never imagined my first kiss would be in the context of sexual abuse at age 26.

God and I simply have reached a point with all this (my singleness, my longing to be an adoptive/foster mother, my friends all "running ahead" culturally speaking by getting married and having children) where it's like: we just have to agree to disagree. It sounds dumb and maybe

it is but I can't ever reach a point where I agree with God that allowing a very naive young woman to be groomed and sexually abused by a predatory "Christian" man was okay. That while all her friends were getting married, and she was being the dutiful bridesmaid, she'd get that.

Maybe I asked for too much. Maybe I *am* asking for too much, God only knows!!!! I guess I just always imagined my healing in the context of a marriage with a really good man. What is harmed in relationship is healed in relationship. But maybe in my case I just have to make do.

I've longed for marriage not to fix all my problems or to be some sort of perfect answer but because I believe we were made for deep relationships. I am flipping tired of Christians shaming me for my desire! Stop telling me to minimize my longing "and then he'll come!" It is BS!

I *am* running to Jesus! And guess what? It still hurts! They can both be true--I can delight myself in the Lord and also ache! And I got a phone call today that just makes me want to light a match and burn everything to the ground.

I don't know. I don't know why the guys I pine for never like me or aren't available and the guys who are drawn to me I don't have feelings for. I don't get it! Attraction is a word I will not write here.

At one point in a church service years ago I felt Jesus asking me to buy a wedding planner. Like the biggest most obnoxious one I could find. I know it sounds ridiculous. I felt ridiculous and am hesitant to even type about it here. But it was like a symbol of defiant hope

because at that point, just like now, there were zero prospects. And I'm not talking about some name it&claim it BS because that's not what this is or was. I may be alone forever. It's a real possibility. Who knows! Tonight I want to burn the stupid purple wedding planner

and if I had a way to do it feasibly, I probably would. Hope is annoying sometimes. And by sometimes, I mean most of the time. I guess I'm just tired of all of this. I am tired of being the Patron Saint of Single Women. I don't want this.

I'm thankful that my cries and longings and yearning and pain is never too much for Jesus. Because it is way too much for me and the people around me who simply have nothing to say anymore because all the well-worn answers have been used up.

Sometimes I feel like my life message is parallel to Psalm 88. Incidentally, I was born in 1988. There's a sense in which I naturally invite people to grieve and lament in a very deep, holy and sacred way. But I'd be lying if I didn't say that I'm terrified God will allow more

suffering for me so that I can be more useful to others, if that makes sense. Prolly should've thought of that before I became a therapist. *facepalm* I know in my head that's not how it works but my heart is afraid. In some ways, the more I am pressed and crushed, the more

precious the metaphorical wine will be. And at some level it becomes sadistic. God isn't a sadist, obviously. Just feeling all of the tension tonight and hoping and praying it won't always be this excruciatingly isolating and lonely. I am relationally staving. The End