Merry Christmas.

Let this one day make you happy.

It seems like it was just last week I had finished high school. Totally free from the pressures of cramming and suffering the consequences of my procrastination. Imagine that - I had an entire month to muck about. I went shopping, I went cam-whoring, I spent time with my best friends and made memories that would last a lifetime.

This year we were all introduced a different life, and a different set of rules and a whole new playing field. Granted that some of us were in another country, but we all faced this new challenge in front of us. No manual, no guide - we just plunged right into its depths, hoping to come out of it with some lessons learnt.

And I must admit that there were so many new things I was exposed to. A higher level of difficulty had been applied to everything -mentally, physically, and emotionally (no doubt.)

At first, I was completely nervous about the whole new encounter. I could not wait to get out of the situation, literally counting down the 18 months of the whole ordeal. And then it got better. I made new friends, and saw that we all felt the same way. You know, it doesn't seem so bad when everyone is heading the same way you are, eventhough the path is narrow and dangerous.

At one point, I made some REALLY NEW friends. Foreign friends. From a different side of the world. And at the time, it seemed exciting, interesting and mostly intriguing. I had never known people from any other country from my own, and it helped that they were especially good-looking.

I thought I had discovered jackpot.

And then I got deeper. Drawn into this whirlpool of ecstasy, hoping to catch that bag of gold at the bottom of it. I began spending more and more time with them, and soon they became one of my top priorities. I was introduced to all those I had admired from afar for a long time and we became fast friends. My confidence had never been stronger; I was on a first-name basis with the ones everyone else at college wanted to meet.

Which now brings me to my biggest mistake of all.

He is my biggest regret. And I hope I never have to regret anything bigger than this in the future. It was that one day I had seen him sitting down all by himself, waiting for someone to talk to him - that led me onto one of the scariest roller coasters of my entire life. Why? Because sometime during this ride, I had morphed into something I did recognise. A monster. A complete beast. Someone, that if I had seen in others, would have been utterly disgusted by.

I was waiting, I was wanting. All the drugs in the world could not measure up to the addiction I was suffering. It was a nightmare I could not wake up from.

It's like those movies, where everyone is having so much fun at a party - free-flowing drugs and booze - and at one point, the crowd sort of separates into couples (some of three or four even) and clothes begin flying everywhere. And caught in this mess is this young girl who suddenly finds herself amidst the chaos (and through the crack and vodka) and realises the shit that is going on. She grabs her clothes and hides in a corner, watching drunken creatures dance in a motion of pure insanity.

I was that girl. Except fully-clothed and clean of vices.

Literally, I was swept deep into a mess. A mess of emotions, a chaos of lies, and worst of all - a blur between right and wrong. I knew he was bad, and yet I wanted him. I knew it would violate my principles, and yet it seemed fine. And I knew it would destroy me, and yet it was so right.

Until finally, I quit. I left everything behind. The 'friends', the stories, and the lies. I wanted to change. Return to my normal self and to the life I knew how to live. No longer did I have think about him every second of the time, no longer did I have to count the days we had not spoken, no longer did I have to make sure I saw him again, no longer did I spend time sieving through what was right and wrong; which were lies and which were truths.

I was free.

And so, what is the use of this post, I hear you scream out in frustration? I'm basically telling myself what I have learnt from my experiences, and what I shall carry with me in my heart to the next year.

I have learnt that ... no guy is worth sacrificing your well-being for. It's usually the ones who appear like angels, who are hell-sent. Also, no friend would lie through their teeth to you, to obtain some sort of advantage over you. Neither will they let you dart through danger just for their fun. Don't trust boys in gangs - especially the ones which are ethnically-based. They tend to join forces and hurt you, eventhough they appear to hate each other in front of you. And they don't really 'look' kind; they're just mentally-undressing you.

Finally, the ones who you can call friends, are the ones who are waiting for you right where you left them, eventhough they 'told you so'.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Happy New Year.

And here's to the start of another new adventure.

Cheers.

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