love.

Today, on my run, I was welcomed with a beautiful surprise.

Maybe it's not readable here, it says, "Marry Me Marnie."

Wow. These days I don't tend to stop on my runs, but I may have spent two minutes just staring at this message with a huge smile on my face (then I snuck back here today to take some photos). Why I am so in love with love is really a mystery. I spent the remainder of my run thinking about how ridiculous my personality is. I love engagment stories more than anything, and I love looking at bridal magazines. I have been known to tear up at the sight of an elderly couple holding hands, walking down the street. I am so obsessed with babies that I want to be a pediatrician! But. I don't think love is for me.

I do understand that I am just 18, and I haven't lived enough to make this drastic assumption. But I don't even feel open to love. Romantic situations, while I love hearing about them, are disaster in the face of this girl. First of all, I have never met anyone who I would kind of want to spend my life with. Second, I know that I have never gotten to know anyone well enough because I will not open up to people, so how can I expect a person to open up to me. I sound like I'm whining, and I don't mean to be. I like being by myself, honestly. I think there are some people who just don't have a match.

I read this really great book last semester, The Blood of Strangers by Frank Huyler. One character in the book, Rosa, is seriously who I see myself as in 20 years. She is this great surgeon famous in the hospital for her wit. She is described as a runner, coffee-stained teeth, with a "quick and dark" intelligence. She would yell at the drunks in the trauma room to "just shut the fuck up." Ah yes, she was amazing. One comment she makes is, "It really makes me wonder why I'm doing this. I thought I'd be married with kids by now like my sister." The narrator answers with, "Oh, come on Rosa. You love this stuff and you know it. You thrive on it." Then he says (as the narrator, so in his own head) that it was the answer she expected, needed. Rosa is like me, but she figured it out a little later in her life. I already know.

This is a pretty heavy topic, sorry. But, as much as I don't want to get married, or have children, I find myself looking to the after part. The elderly couple holding hands. I fear lonliness at that age. Maybe I'll get married when I'm 70.