It's been a very long while since I last wrote a super saccharine, cringe-inducing piece, the kind of which filled pages and pages of my little plaid diaries. Funny, for as long as I can remember I've always been the cheesy, emotional, hopeless romantic one. I could elaborate on that phase of my life with sarcastic glee (after all, I am at my best when I make fun of myself at my worst) but that's a tried-and-tested route by now. I have sworn off everything cheesy and all that it implies. You can't blame me for that. I'd either have to be a complete masochist or just plain crazy if I'd stay the same happy-go-lucky, wide-eyed idealist I was when I was fourteen. After all, it's been more than five years now...

Five years, five disappointing bittersweet heartbreaks. Five. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. My sentiment exactly. You'd think after all the drama and dysfunction I'd know better. Ha. Well, it's not as if things got progressively worse, but they didn't get any better either. What about that latest one, you ask? To be perfectly honest, I still haven't figured that out yet myself. It was like a beautiful, cozy fairytale that suddenly pulled out from under me and doused my head with a bucket of freezing cold water. Talk about a rude awakening. And to think I practically gave everything up. And for what? A sweet, winsome beginning that somehow, just somehow, twisted itself into an abrupt ending. I'm still scratching my head in bewilderment and wondering whether I should be crying my eyes out or laughing my head off.

But seriously, no sympathies please. The last thing I need is pity for pity's sake.