It’s December now, and it is unbelievable that we’re still here. It is unbelievable that we are all made it and that this fucking 2020 is about to end. Like anybody else, I had a rough fucking year, and as we all know, a lot of weird shit happened that nobody could expect and account for. Fuck 2020 and fuck the pandemic. This shit is about to be over. But is this true? Will the new 2021 be a better year? What will make it better? The new digit won’t do shit about making a year better. We should work harder on ourselves to make sure that we are faithful and better people moving forward.

I ended last 2019 year with a post, and my year’s review and accomplishments in “Time is all we have.” I was proud of myself, and what I could accomplish in that year; in particular, it was one of the most successful years in my life so far. I accomplished many things that I wanted to achieve in my personal life, from improving my lifestyle to becoming a father. Also, I was focused more on my writing, created this blog, and I made and saved the most money I ever have in my life so far. It was true. I had high hopes going into 2020 with my goals were all set up, with lists and priorities listed, and my mind programmed on success. Success is the weird fucking word to use for sure. Things didn’t go well or as planned, let me tell ya.

From the beginning of this year, something felt strange. There was something weird in the air besides COVID that made me feel strange and notice that somehow things are not the same. It almost felt that I was pushing for something that didn’t mean shit and didn’t matter, and I wasn’t feeling it at all. It almost felt like I want to procrastinate more than accomplish anything or push myself harder. Two months into the new year, we’ve got the major fucking pandemic going on with, and the lockdowns began, and later the country drowned in hate and burned in the fire. I knew that some of the things that I set myself to do somehow, I cannot accomplish right off the bet. It just felt weird, or instead, I didn’t feel like doing much, to begin with. I was sick for almost four weeks at the beginning of the year. As I found later, it wasn’t coronavirus, but I was sick as a dog, and those cold / flu-like symptoms would never go away. I have been miserable but still went to work every day and was just dealing with it on the go.

In the second week of March, we’ve learned that there is a dangerous virus in the air, and the company will shut down its doors, and we will all be working from home. I overheard a conversation in the office that there was somebody sick in our building one floor up and that it took these assholes about a week to figure out what to do and whether they need to shut down and announce that there has been a case and that we all have to be careful. No shit. I might have used the same elevator with that sick person. Who knows? But as long I never got ill with coronavirus, I suppose I wasn’t exposed. Who knows how many others got sick then? Working from home felt strange in the beginning, but I knew this is temporary. I knew this was a two weeks matter, and we’ll be able to go back to the office and resume ‘normal’ working conditions. How wrong was I?

Besides getting used to the new life and worrying about getting the virus while disinfecting every fucking thing every time I went shopping and throwing all my clothes into the washer right after, things were happening in the background in my personal life as well. I worked on editing my old poems for my new poetry collection book. I decided to self-publish the selected poems as one of my dreams was to publish my book back then. I wasn’t sure before what that book was going to be. I had a handful of poems to work with. Everything I wrote from 2016 until then in 2020 was screened and edited for the book. I had to cut out about half of them and throw them out as they didn’t make any sense to me anymore; they were raw, uncooked, unedited, and I said, fuck them. The entire editing process took a long time. I started in late November of 2019 and finished around April with a few minor edits here and there. I am sure there are some more edits to be made, but I am done with it.

In May, as my city was burning in flames and getting raped by luters and assholes pretending they are doing the lord’s work, I was working on the book cover. I found a great cover designer who designed my current book cover, and in about a week, everything was finished. With a few hiccups here and there, I was able to publish my book on Amazon, finally. On July fourth, was the ebook version published, and the printed version was available by mid-July. It was, or it has to be, the proudest moment of my life. I finally did it. I’ve published my book! What else could I possibly do to feel better and more accomplished as a writer?

I was proud of that accomplishment, and it did feel great. But like they say, once you reach your long-time desired goal, it never feels satisfying for too long. In a few days, I went back to ‘normal’ as the excitement winded down. I didn’t care if the book was going to sell a few copies or none. The fact that I published my work was my main priority. It has been my dream since the time I started to write poetry back in 2016. It was a long time coming for me. I could now proudly call myself a writer and a poet and have something to back it up with, to justify my new achievement. It is not about calling yourself this or that; it is about me trying things that nobody otherwise would ever advise you to. It is me trying to go after my dream against all odds. I tried to live the life that I wanted to live in parallel with my ‘normal existence’ and my ‘normal nine-to-five’ job, and my everyday family life. I did it, and I am proud of it, and I am a happy man.

I always found the writer’s lives so eventful and exciting. The fact that they will at some point in the day sit down and write their thoughts onto a paper, and eventually, the entire world will read them and admire them and learn and get inspired from them was just fucking fascinating. I wanted to try to live this life, do what I like and enjoy doing, and write. I found writing a great way to let your mind go on a tangent, especially with my blog; I can write whatever I fucking want to write. There are no limitations, and I am not trying to tie myself to anything particularly. I get up early in the morning, make my coffee, and write whatever fuck comes to me. Most of that shit eventually is being posted on the blog. Writing made me think differently, think more profoundly and broader, and it made me understand so much shit that I’ve never paid any attention to in the past. Writing helps me lose my frustration and anxiety and makes me feel more accomplished and fulfilled. I think that is all a man needs in his life.

In November, I’ve resumed working on my long time left-behind novel, “Factory.” I spend 30 days in the row writing at least one chapter a day, and by the end of the month, I’ve got a solid 80 percent of the draft completed. Thanks to the Nanowrimo organization and the challenge they created for writers, I put a massive dent in this novel, and I hope to finish it soon and publish it in 2021. Writing every day, regardless of the circumstances, also made me more dedicated and more creative. I always had something to write about. I didn’t have to think about it too much either. I woke up in the morning, opened my laptop, and the writing just came to me. It was a great feeling of accomplishment and, overall, the most satisfying feeling a writer might experience. I also learned that writing every day is great exercise. Over a short period, you will end up with a lot of fucking pages done and that it will eventually be part of something bigger. This is how you write books; this is how an overwhelming writing process comes to fruition.
Living through the madness of 2020, I had to keep my cool and stay sane and keep the fucking job to support my family. I am the only supporter of my family, and I have no excuses to feel sorry for myself. It was hard at times, all the fucking times with all that work and all that chaos and all those long nights where I had to stay up late to catch up on everything. The minute I feel like I am about to accomplish or finish something, ten more fucking things would emerge and then ten more and more and more. It was hard to feel great about yourself, then one accomplishment created so much other shit, and it just spread faster than COVID, and it was impossible to catch up with. I was so fucking fed up with that nonsense. The whole fucking year was like that.

Madness and work could never stop. All those corporate motherfuckers couldn’t fucking take it easy, not even for one minute. There was always something more, something else; there was still some sort of emergency or another fire to put down. They kept us miserable as fuck and enslaved, crushing our little workmen’s souls and having us just suck it all up. There is nowhere to go, nothing else to do, and no commutes and excuses not to work. You’re at home, so make sure the job is getting done. These fucking fucks! I was so close to fucking quit and fuck with all that nonsense. But where would I go? What would I do? There are so many people eating shit because there are no jobs or the jobs they still have non-essential. They cannot leave or quit because there is no guarantee that they will find anything else. There is no guarantee that the new job I might get will be any better than this one. There is also “the new job stress” that comes along with it, and I am just not there yet. I am a man, and I am taking this hit now. I am learning my lessons as I go, and I will indeed address all these fucking things in my near future.

For the very little time that the gyms were open in the city of “not-so-much-brotherly-love” Philadelphia, I was able to resume my regular workouts, and that fucking saved me. It truly did. After my first workout at the gym since February, I felt like I have been born again. I felt so fucking fantastic that I forgot about all that pandemic nonsense altogether. I finally found the solution to that depression I lived with for the last seven-eight months. I just needed to work out like a motherfucker to feel that I am alive again. The simplified workout I’ve been doing at home wasn’t even close to the gym’s workouts.

Being part of a community with being amongst other people doing the same thing felt great. You do miss people occasionally, even if, in general, you’re not a people’s person like myself. I did the “sober October” for the first time in my life this year. I worked out every day at the gym, and I quit drinking and smoking for the whole 31 days. It felt fucking great and liberating. I felt like a human being for such a long time. I thought that I could live and feel at my best every day as long as I have a great workout. And things were not as bad as they were and because it did not seem fucking matter anymore how actually bad things were. The governor closed Philadelphia first in November and later the whole of Pennsylvania in December. Now we’ve all locked up at our homes again with nothing else to do but to worry about the fucking virus and politics and to get even more fucking crazy.

I was lucky I had a chance to go on a vacation this year to my favorite and beautiful Sarasota, Florida, with my family and friends. We had a great time there in late September, and the weather was warm, and the beach was sunny, and the white sand felt like flour under my bare feet. Most importantly, after such a long time of madness and chaos, I felt like the time stopped. Suddenly, the time didn’t matter anymore; there was no urgency in anything, nowhere to go, and nothing to do and nothing to worry about. I recovered for a short period before returning to that fucking work madness a week after.

The last time my wife and I went to Sarasota was in 2017. I described that trip in my short-story “Like the Catcher in the rye.” It was one of the best vacations we ever had, and even until this day, we reminisce about it with so many great memories and feelings that we’ve experienced back then. Now we came back with our one-year-old baby. We were parents now, we were different people, but Sarasota was the same. It was the same great, beautiful, warm, and sunny, and you feel like you always want to live there. We spent every day on the same Lido Beach, and we watched these incredible sunsets as a family now, and we had a great time overall. Nobody was thinking about the virus or pandemic anymore, and that was good. Life was normal again for a moment. I stopped by the same hotel at Indiana Place, where we stayed last time. It was still there, open, the different paint job on the outside but still the same place. I walked by it, smoking a cigarette, recalling in my memories from back in the day. I remember staying in the same parking lot at night drunk, smoking cigarettes, and thinking about my life and about becoming a writer and the Salinger and “The Catcher in the Rye“, which I was reading at the time. So many memories came back.

In conclusion, I want to say one more thing. Fuck you, 2020!!! I wish this fucking year would never happen. I wish we all were smarter and better prepared, but it is what is it, and we are here, and we’ve survived. I am moving into 2021 with no particular plan. I am not going to disappoint myself and feel miserable because I couldn’t achieve this or that. I will set my mind upon the things that really matter to me and go after them, and the rest of that horseshit can go to the fucking hell. I will be me in 2021, as close and as real to myself as I can get. I will focus on my family, health, writing, and overall development as a human being. I will focus on my family and being a great father. I have no high expectations as I don’t give a fuck about any expectations anymore. The pieces will fall where they should, and I will either live with that or forget it. I will no longer be a slave to my job, but I will do my best because I am a savage, and I will not let any motherfucker dismiss me. So, fuck 2020 and cheers 2021, and best of luck to us all as we all will need it.