Excerpt from Essay :

I turn to them when I feel bad. I also turn to them when I feel like sharing how happy I am. I recognize their growing importance in my life and I am starting to love them even more. I am beginning to care for them more and more. They are not just friends I meet for fun. They are friends who know who I am. They are friends who understand me. They are friends who care for me and love me like my own family loves me.

Now that I am living on my own, without a family of my own, I am beginning to think more seriously of the future. Someday I would like to settle down. I want to have my own family and I do not want to grow old alone. I am starting to look at my relationship with the special person in my life in a different way. I realize that my relationship with my lover is equally important to me. I have come to realize...

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I would often feel needy of attention and would want to feel cared for. I sometimes despise myself because of this just because I do not want to be a needy lover. So I often strive to come to terms with the fact that I am on my own but that being on my own doesn't have to mean that I am lonely.

I would like to think that living on my own has forced me to become tougher, braver and more responsible. I realize now more than ever that I am responsible for what I make of my life. I realize now that everything I do inevitably shapes who I will be and what I will become in the future. Living on my own has forced me to realize and acknowledge the people who are important to me. It has made me realize that belonging to someone and having people love you are equally important to live. And I realize that my life is so much better because I have come to realize these things.