I look around at all the people who have made me feel unimportant and the crowd never gets smaller. And it never will. They have taken my smiles and put them in a pocket stuffed with their crumpled up receipts and mostly chewed gum wads. They’ve stolen my words and my deeds and gave them away as their own.

This crowd will do anything to stay where they are. Cozy among peers who will pat them on the back for their own goodwill. They feel good about themselves surrounded by like minds. Content inside their numbers.

But it isn’t real. A crowd like that holds no loyalties. One moment it looks like a circle of love and the next you’re in the center of a mob.

I got out of all the crowds I found myself in. It took time. It’s scary to be alone. It was scary, at first, to be with only myself and a few dear friends. It seemed like giving up. Felt like losing a part of myself.

I am more whole and more me than ever before. You don’t need a crowd to feel whole. In fact, you are more likely to find “who you are” outside of the crowd than inside one.