• As she sat on the beach, soaking in the summer's warmth and reflecting on nothing in particular, it sudenly struck Rebecca how much the landscape reminded her of the time when she used to do the same thing as a little girl so many years ago. As the earth and sky blurred in her eyes behind a veil of tears, she drifted back through space and time to a place she had forgotten long ago. The air was still warm, but unlike the setting in her mind, Rebecca's heart was as cold and hard as ice in a storm. For all her outward appearances she was not a brave person. Brave people, even when their hearts are hurt, continue to offer them up willingly; knowing that no matter how much it hurts now, they will only be stronger for it. Those of us who are not as brave as these hide our hearts away and bury them deep where they think no one will ever find them. They lock them in boxes and seal them away thinking that a life of empty reason withoug feeling would be better than to allow themselves to experience and learn from their pain. As such, their hearts never truly heal, and they are bound in a constant cycle of regret. As the tears forged a path acros her face,Rebecca was glad that, painful as it was, her memory was just that, and she rejounced that she was no longer in a place where such things were true.