Things that come to past.

Several months ago I made several drastic decisions in my life. I decided that I needed my life to take a more positive turn and in order to do that I needed to make some changes. My whole life I was on the outside of the popular crowd just on the edges between being just liked to being totally in. Not that I cared much but occasionally I wondered what people in the inner circles of these "in crowds" really felt about their lives. I was well liked and everyone knew me because I was genuinely nice to everyone not because I was rich, stylish, or popular by any means. So when I graduated high school I was fine with that feeling of not ever wanting to know what those "in crowd" people thought.
Many years later I had been through certain trails and tribulations and landed myself smack dab in the middle of a truly horrific relationship with all my former friends gone. I was overwhelmed with the feeling of regret. I had made such decisions that had cost me what had really mattered to me, getting my college degree and more importantly one of the most important pieces of life, the true friendships I had made not from the fakeness of popularity or money. I was quite alone and miserable as things were coming to a disastrous end. I went back to wondering what those "in crowd" people had done with their lives if they were still the same people only popular with those same friends and their lives never added to much or if they brilliantly glided through life with the same ease as they had in high school. So I did some leg work and find out that it was a split of both worlds.
So I decided to go back to what I had known to be the right path, got back in touch with some old friends and started to rebuild my life. Needless to say some of the decisions I continued to make didn't make my growth easy. I struggled between what I wanted and whether what I was doing was really getting me there. I went on a binge of hanging with friends who drank way too much, friends who are to this day some of the most selfish people I know, and people who truly weren't my friends. I spent over two years with these people who tried to be the "in crowd". Two years with being held back, out of control, and lost. All of which was my own fault. If I had been willing to work a little harder instead of taking the easy route I wouldn't have been in half the bad spots I had gotten myself into. I was in a rut and was still just as depressed, lost, and confused as I had been two years before.
After a misfortunate New Year's eve that ended with hurt feelings and abandonment, I knew I couldn't continue done the path I was walking. Real change had to be made within myself and my life in order for me to ever be the person I wanted to be, the person I was capable of. I walked away from my main group of friends, the people that we all called our entourage. Every moment I stayed wrapped up in the lies, drinking, and destructive behavior was doing nothing but harming my future and hurting those around me that really cared about me. Everything was cut cold turkey. I walked away from those people, stopped drinking, and started just working on everything from my career to my writing to my relationships with the people still in my life.
Life in that miraculous way seemed to prevail. My mood lightened and things got easier. Though I still struggle at times I realized after all that time that all those things that I had thought were important, truly meant nothing. The real things in life were up to me to find and no person or bottle would do that for me. For the couple of great friends I have, I'm lucky they toughed it out with me. For me the road I traveled was like all other roads, something I needed to learn all on my own. I'm just glad I'm on the other side.