Is this what it's like to burn in hell for your sins?

The sins we commit against ourselves, and you (God). The sins of hurt and lack and separation and loss.

I don't care if my words are spiritually "good" or not. I'm writing to sooth my heart. To feel something other than hopelessness and grief. I feel like people are watching. My mom, the kids, people online. "how much God is in her?" they ask. "How gracefully will she manage this?"

And I am falling. Each day the reality sinks in heavier. And now, I pay for my sins. I'm paying for my infidelity. I'm paying for being the "other woman" in a creepy emotional affair. I'm paying for being born into sin. I'm paying for my willful ignorance. I'm paying for following instincts that were built from shit. I'm paying for being cute. I'm paying for being beautiful. I'm paying for being loved. I'm paying for my sickness. I'm paying for my duties. I'm paying for lack consciousness.

I'm paying, paying, paying for these indulgences in tears and happiness stolen.

I can't imagine in this moment how any of this is worth it. I can't care about growth or transformation. Right now I am nothing, I have nothing. I have no desire, only pain. I have no will, only pain. I have no God, only pain. Pain is what I have. Pain is what I am.

I've felt this pain two times before. Two times he left me. Two times I wasn't what he wanted. Two times I was too much.

Those other two times, I turned it around. First, with sweet talk and sex. Second, by giving up on him. By being willing to walk away. 17 years later, that pain hasn't diminished. The pain of Jim leaving me has always been here. Those first two times, relief came. He changed his mind. He came back. This time, he won't.

19 years ago I was in a bad place. I didn't know it though. I was 18. I had good parents who moved me into my dorm room at Uconn: Shippee Hall, all females. I felt kind of excited. Not that much though, it mostly just seemed like the next step in my aimless existence. But there was always that chance it could change. Every year, new.

I hated my roommate. She was chipper and sheltered. I was depressed and exposed. I wanted to skip class and sleep until 4pm. She wanted to roll up the shades at 8am and do homework. Eventually she moved out. And Jim moved in. To an all girls dorm. Showering in the middle of the night.

Our sex was frequent and fervent but misguided. I wanted him with me all the time. I never wanted him to leave. I felt safe in his shadow. I felt purposeful, cared for, in love. His presence was a life raft and when he left, I felt exposed to the ocean of bad feelings that threatened to suck me to its depth. Nothing mattered to me as much as him.

I was an emotionally unfaithful partner. I had an undercurrent of need for the attention and love of men. I always had one a little too close to me. First, the calculus teacher. Then, a younger classmate. Later, a coworker. Later still, my boss.

Would this all have happened if I hadn't already spent nights crying on Jim's bathroom floor, rejected, lonely, and sad? Would this have happened if I hadn't failed at all of my attempts to make him fall in love with the sparkle behind my eyes?

Too many wounded child interactions left us both weary. I was so open and desperate for someone (Jim) to welcome me, embrace me, cherish me, fall in love with me. My energy said to him "here I am. Take me. I trust you. I give it all to you". Why was I so willing to give it all that easily?

I can't imagine that child ever seeing daylight with another person ever again. She gave it all when she was young, willing to trust and love the first man to ever say she was worth it. To EXPECT MORE. Those words, written on an empty square of newspaper and passed to me from a Starbucks chair, were probably just the clever creation of a nerdy graduate student "playing the game". But I read them, "I Want to Give You More", and I never looked back.