With so much time to myself, I was pretty much raised by fantasy books and daydreams. It's no wonder for someone to grow up with unrealistic expectations of life like that, happy endings are just a way of life and you can't stop yourself from believing that last minute miracles actually happen.

Graduating from high school and realizing how easily people (including myself) say goodbye completely changed my outlook on life. It used to be "friends are family" and now it's "enjoy it while it lasts." Lifelong friends are so much rarer than I could have ever known. As much as we would all like to believe in such things like true love and friendship, divorce statistics and common knowledge will ruthlessly shatter the comfort of that dream. 

It took a few years for myself to realize that such naïve ideas would not only make a fool out of me, but put off the people I would come to meet. Over time, I've become less and less tolerant towards real life emotions and tribulations. Unhappy moments in plot lines haunt me. But I learned that caring can sometimes be unfair. Care is a gift but even gifts aren't always useful.

Gifts can be burdens, but they are burdens we carry happily for those that we love. It is when love is lost that we throw off the responsibility of these burdens. But their loss should not be taken lightly because to do so would be to deny that they had meaning.

I fully believe that burdens define the people who carry them. And thus, should be treated with the respect of a great treasure.