Poker, I think I finally understand it now

Well I can just post in here of how bad I played, how many hands I lost to suck outs 2 outers,3 outers, w/e. I can sit here and whine of how I lost a lot of money last two days but thats not the point.I rather not to do that and waste my or anybody elses time. Instead I will post what I have finally and I know this for a fact, I will even repeat myself I have finally learned the meaning behind poker. Last two days what I did was just a mistake on my part, I first started out by playing a few tourneys, then I started playing more and more until I got sucked out on few and then that caused me to donk off the rest but anyways, I just watched move "the deal" I really enjoyed it and I had to think about poker for a second and I think it really opened up my mind.
I won't give away the whole story but I thought the movie was excellent, I think from that movie I really learned what poker is all about, I don't play live much but poker in my own opinion is basically US, ok that might not make sense, but what I'm saying is we make poker, we create our own table image, we have our own style, stradegy, game plan etc etc. To be a winning poker player though you have to pay close attention to your opponents and thats the only way to be a winning player. I mean I could also blame that I lost many of my coin flips in my tourneys but who's fault is that? of course mine if I had played better I wouldn't be forced to get my short stack in with worst hand.
I personally don't play much live, mainly just with some friends just for few bucks and when we play its nothing serious, so there is nothing really to learn other than how to beat few drunks who dont care what happens, yea anybody can do that.
I'm going back between to many things right now, I'm just thinking about this and typing, which is probably a bad idea but I guess I just need to let everything out and just improve is what I'm saying.
Well my story is pretty interesting I think, when I first started playing, I wasn't sure what to think about poker, I thought of it what you would call "gamboling" ( yes I know I spelled gambling wrong) I played for fake chips maybe couple of hours a week, I didnt understand this game, so I started watching it on tv and I would learn more and more new things, and when I played I started to understand more so for example lets say the flop was all hearts, my opponent bets at me, and from what I have seen past few hands he would check with a strong hand and let the other player bet, so even though I have missed the flop too I started to think would he really be doing this if he had it, I think not, so I raise and he folds, that type of thing, of course sometimes I would get tricked by my "read" so I started watching more and more and started understanding it more. Then I had lots of fake chips on stars which I happened to sell to one of my friend for like 10$ of course when I started playing I had no idea what bank roll management was and sometimes today I wonder if I have yet to learn it, so I played like 3$ game or w/e it was obviously lost all of my money, don't really remember what happened but after trying playing few times I fell in love with the game right then and right there, so I decided to take another stab at it. This time I started playing some smaller sngs, won a little money here and there, I haven't really played any tourneys or anything so I'm thinking why don't i try one of these, seems like it would be fun from watching on tv. so I did that I believe my first tourney I did happen to hit itm but I think I got to tight and was playing scared money, thats when I started thinking if I can make it this far then I can make it even further, so my question to myself was how can I do that? so I started thinking, then I'm like well I definitely need to play a bit more aggresive loosen up and I don't need to have the nuts in order to call or bet, so I'm thinking ok I can try that. I kept playing them, got deep in few, nothing big of course I believe my biggest was like 7th place in 2$ tourney, Then I started learning more and more and taking more a bit serious. Then I finally had few nice cashed, don't remember everything exactly but I can say that I started improving, I wasn't playing scared money anymore and even though I was still playing ABC poker I understood poker even more, I learned few new tricks, check raising etc etc. Then I was able to actually final table smaller games and I started playing on full tilt.
This is probably the 2nd part of the story, so my very first tourney a friend of mine who I haven't talked to in a long time says to me you want to play some tourney, I'm like yea I guess I don't know just checking out the site or something like that I said, he goes I send you 26$ play the 26$ mtt thats in 10 minutes, I kept trying to convince him I didn't want to play it but to be honest I did want to play it even though really didn't want to play it with his money, believe it or not I got 13th place in it, yea very lovely number. At the beginning I started off pretty bad and I was able to bring it back from a short stack and was even at a table with umm whats his name, michael craig and even took a nice pot from him, and unfortunately I got very unlucky and took 13th. after that I for some weird reason decided to put 20$ in to heads up and figured if I lose I just save rest, give 30$ back to my friend and just keep the 10$ish or w/e I would have let to play w/ myself, I'm not sure why I decided to play heads up so dont ask why, and I happen to do really good and somehow I won 500$ in less than 2 hours, I was a bit surprised/excited and even shocked to some point. So yea I shared some of it w/ my friend and this is where the good part is, let's make it short and sweet, I had terrible brm was to excited played over my roll, and lost my money. Yup I was dissapointed but I figured oh blah w/e not like it was my money, I didn't really play often so it didn't matter much to me.
Then I started to poker more serious, joined few forums and basically read a lot of hand histories, just to try to figure out how people bet in each case at each level, and after a while obviously I stopped doing it. Of course I have got a lot better and moved up levels, but I like all players still need to learn and improve, I know luck is a factor in this game but it's so tiny that in the long run I should be alright long as I play smart and get better. I can keep going and tell more stories but basically what I was trying to say is I know this unlucky bs will end and I will even get lucky in some situations but luck will balance it all out, its all about my skill and do I have the skill to be a winning player? and the skill to be able to be patient and practice good brm, that I don't know right now but I hope I do and if I don't there is only one way to improve, Practice!!!