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Going down memory lane

~ John Loraine ~ 12 Comments


It has been some time since I sat down to write something new. Life’s been busy, you know? Life happens as we speak. One thing that changes as you grow older and become a family man is that time becomes more of an essence, is always short and passes by quickly. Back in my youth, I noticed time passing slowly. I always waited for things to happen; they couldn’t happen fast enough. Things have changed since then. I have changed since then. Once a careless lad with nothing to worry about but going to school, getting passing grades, and then making some money on the side from my never-ending restaurant job and now I have adult responsibilities like going to work every day, contributing to my 401K plan, feeding my family, raising a son, and making timely mortgage payments and so on. There is no time to smell the roses. There is no time to get a proper amount of sleep. There is no time to rest on the couch with a beer in my hand and a movie to watch for the evening. There is almost no or minimal time for writing. Where did all the youth go? Where are all the friends now who were so much around? Where is that warm sunshine of the good old young days that blinded us back in the day with its light and made us act on the impulse and live for the moment? Fuck if I know.

It’s warmer now outside. Mid-February feels like mid-April, and that makes me feel better. Winter depression seems to evaporate as the early warm sunshine fills the day with its presence, fooling us into believing that Spring is here. I wish this would be the case. The days are getting longer now, and there is more sunshine than I ever remember during winter. The temperatures are up across the country, and global warming doesn’t seem like a problem to most. This early warm weather makes me feel young again. I reminisce about the days of my youth when things just started to happen to me. All those things I did, and some I still do, made me the person I am today. I love to go back down memory lane, thinking about how it was. I never knew where I would end up in a few years, not even a few days from now. I enjoyed most of it. I knew that this was me exploring the world, getting my hands on and my thoughts about adult life, trying to become part of society, trying to become a grownup, trying to write my first lame poetry. 

I got a few calls from different people I knew in the past since the new year began. We were all, in one way or another, close back in the day and had some shared history we lived through together. Each of those three represents a certain point in my past life, and it was interesting to go back in time in my head and recall the events from the past. I remembered how I felt about things and people back then, what was on my mind back then, what issues I had to deal with, and how I felt. And mainly, the most exciting thing was that I felt like I did back when I was young, and I just faced life straight and was trying to figure it all out. 

Somebody from the past, whom I hadn’t seen or heard about in fifteen years, resurfaced in my life and reached out to me, and we chatted. It seemed that time was standing still between us all those years. I was happy to reconnect and revisit where we left off. Some people never change, whether good or bad. This person did not fucking changed at all, and I went straight back down the time capsule, and it felt great. We talked about the friends we knew and hung out with back in the day. Most of them are not friends anymore. There are reasons we do not hate each other; we just took different paths in life. If I met some of those friends today, we’d have smiles and laughs, and it would be cool to see one another. I was surprised to get these kinds of calls anymore. I was surprised that after so many years with no contact, somebody decided to reach out to me and was interested in reconnecting and meeting up again. I rarely get any calls from people I still am close friends with. But once somebody reaches out to me from fifteen years ago, it makes me wonder. It makes me feel happy in a way. Since we all grew up and became adults, most of us with families now and busy daily lives. Many things we used to do, and many people we used to hang out with, dropped off from our lives. It usually happens that way if there is no reason to or if there are no circumstances that keep us together; those relationships disappear with time. The more I think about the past, about my past life, the more I am convinced that regardless of how tough and uneventful it seemed to me back then, looking back, it was a great fucking life.

Music was always in my life. Music, just like the scent, has this incredible ability to bring back our memories. I often go back to listening to music I loved listening to in the past. I think of something from the past, and then I pull the album or a playlist or a song and play it. I play the shit out of it while I think and reminisce. I often go back to the older recordings or albums and revisit them repeatedly. A lot of time, I find something new to me that I haven’t noticed before. There is something closely relatable in the lyric, or there is a chord progression or a sound that I missed when listening to this song earlier, but now I cannot help but focus on that and think about it more and how it resonated with me and how it all makes me feel today. 

It feels good to look back at my early struggles, whatever they were back then, and how things changed and I overcame all of that shit, and I am still around, with a wine glass in my hand, with a family in my house, and with two self-published books out there in the world. No struggles are permanent, and nothing will last forever. Shitty ones always follow happy moments, and they exchange one another repeatedly. I have noticed that during my shittiest moments, usually because of my workplace, my creative juices flowed like a fucking Niagara Falls. I wasn’t even thinking about any creative ideas as I so them everywhere around me. I thought about writing them down, writing my stories, my poems, and even thinking about my yet-to-be novel, but most of it just stayed in my mind then. I want to capture all of them somewhere in the box and use them as needed later. I knew that my job was shit, my boss was an asshole, my coworkers were not as nice as they pretended to be, and neither did they give any fucks about me, my life, and my career. I knew I didn’t belong there. I still don’t relate to most people or belong to organizations, and jobs, making me a weirdo and a more authentic individual. At this point in my life, I am very familiar with myself as a person, who I am, what I do, what I want, what I like, and where I want to be, and that is all that matters. I no longer depend on or give a shit about others’ opinions as I know I am not living my life for anybody but me. And I am going to make it worthwhile. 

Sitting here today makes me wonder what the future is going to bring. Will the future be kind to me? How much more shit do I have to go through before I feel complete and fully satisfied? Am I on the right path? What the fuck is the right path anyway? The only way to find out is to live it and see it. Nothing will happen unless I take action. Tomorrow will be here regardless of whether I will be here. Tomorrow will depend on my decisions from today and from before. I am in charge of my tomorrow, and you are in charge of yours. I wish this early Spring weather stays here until the summer, but I know that the fucking winter is not done yet with us. There is always a proper time for everything. The day is always followed by night. Nature has its balance. Nature has its laws. It’s us who don’t have any of it or don’t follow any of the rules, and a lot of time, common sense, and we are all running around and freaking out about every little stupid shit. But while we are here today, we can all enjoy the incredible beauty of nature and the sunshine above our heads. It is a perfect time to capture and enjoy these pleasant brief moments of our lives and the early Spring and be young at heart as we once were.

Looking back at the good old days

~ John Loraine ~ 19 Comments


Life goes. It goes down and up and sideways. But it always keeps moving all the time. And then, the next minute, you realize that you’ve grown old, and the person in the mirror is somebody else. You still feel young and think you are a young and careless lad, but you are an adult now. This happens in life. Life happens. And honestly, it is good to get older and to look older because you got a chance to be here for a while. It is unfortunate to see someone young go into eternity before their time. The fact that you and I have a chance to wake up every morning to live our lives and do our things no matter how dull is a gift. It is a gift that not everyone appreciates or even stops to think about. But we should. We all should just stop the crazy nonsense of the day and think about ourselves, who we are, what we’ve become, what we are doing, and how we spend our limited time here on Earth.

I always thought that I lived the most boring and uneventful life. The life that doesn’t even have too many stories to talk about. I never had anything out of the ordinary happening to me. I have never been to many exciting places or done too many great things. I have nothing to brag about. Sure, after thirty-five years of living, anybody has something to say. Anybody has seen or done something interesting at some point in their lives. It may not be the experience that wows too many people, but it is our life story. I spend the holiday time off reminiscing about the good old days. The young and formative days when my hair was down to my shoulders, the ear piercing, or even before that time, the days when I looked as I would today call a child, but then I thought I was the shit. These are some great memories. Watching all those pictures of young myself with my friends doing things back in the day was a great experience and much-needed time to analyze and go over the past to see where I came from.

I remember how everything felt like for the first time. The first time not spend the night at home. The first job. The first paycheck. The first love. The first sex. The first car. The first fight. The first major disappointment. The happy days and the sad ones. The best friends and the worst friends. Hanging out until late at night, getting drunk, getting yourself into trouble, getting yourself out of trouble. There’s just so much that we go through in life, and there is also so much to learn from. But whatever you did back then, good or bad, made you who you are today. I don’t think I would ever want to go back in time and fix my shit. I don’t think that would help nobody. That would change history, my life, and who I have become.

I remember my circle of friends back then in my young days. Very few of those friends remained good friends today. At one point, we lived together, did things together, and had ordinary day-to-day life and the same problems. Now, as we all grow up and are adults, things are very different. We have wives, children, mortgages, jobs, and our problems are real and serious now. There is no time to have a beer on a random day just because there is nothing else to do. There is no time to hang out late into the night, smoking cigarettes and telling chokes and stories. The saddest part is seeing the pictures of your friend who is no longer alive. Who would ever think of that back then? We all thought we would live together into old age. I remember when I was young, that time was never a concern or issue. The only problem with time was the wait. I always waited for something to happen. Waiting until I am old enough to drive a car, old enough to get a job, old enough to buy a pack of cigarettes or a bottle of booze. Waiting until I am rich enough to continue to live this worryless life and have fun all the time. Looking at those pictures made me sad. It brought a lot of great memories. I felt the same as I used to back then for a brief moment. The power of the past. It was hard to find any serious pictures of us. We always did something fun. We always smiled, laughed, made faces, and made funny postures in those pictures. This is how I will remember that time, with a bright smile on my face. We were so alive and happy, and nothing would take this away from us but time.

Teens and twenties are a fucking worst times to live through. I don’t think I am the only one thinking that. People say you’re young and have your health, youth, and so much ahead of you. But what do you really have? Or what does an average teenager or twenty-years old really have? They have a whole bunch of shit to deal with. That’s what’s ahead of them. On the one hand, yes, it is a great time to be young and careless and have fun at your parent’s expense, but on the other, you are just drowning in the shit of life deeper with every year trying to figure out who you are, who you want to be, what is your purpose, what should you be doing with your life. I went through so much bullshit, stress, and anxiety that I would not want to return to those days to relieve myself again. Fuck that. I am happy and fortunate to have come out of it alive and kicking, and luckily for me, I’ve made some right choices in this life. I don’t have tattoos on my face, and I am not in jail or living on the street corner. That’s not true for so many others, though. Life takes time to figure out. It takes your whole life to figure this motherfucker out. You learn as long as you live. Try to explain this to a twenty-year-old.

Most of them are in school or college or a university, trying to get educated, getting a shit ton of loans to get the education which might not work out in the end. When you’re young, you have to deal with school shit, deal with or without your girlfriend or your boyfriend, deal with anxiety, stress, depression, bad habits, your classmates, your teachers, your neighbors, your shitty jobs, your shitty cheap cars, and so on. Throughout my time in college, I had no idea who I wanted to be, but I had to pick a major that I thought would work out for me well and I will be able to find a job after. Back then, a hundred dollars was a lot of money. My tunnel vision was too fucking narrow and nearsighted. I couldn’t think too far ahead or see much of anything to have a better plan. I had to eat the shit, be miserable and somehow get up and move forward. I had to switch to part-time schooling because I saw more value in working a blue-collar job at the wood factory, manufacturing fucking tables, closets, and countertops by making sixteen dollars per hour. That was a low-hanging fruit for me, and I knew I had to show up and do some work from 6:30 AM to 4 PM and punch out my card. I could only see that far ahead. I couldn’t see too far looking at my education path.

I was lucky to get my shit together and graduate from a junior college to attend a four-year school. That was a different kind of animal, much more expensive, and so much harder to study and follow the all-new rules and keep up with the schedule and assignments and exams. I remember going to bed one night, shutting down the lights, and crying. Crying as I used to back in my childhood days when my father would beat the shit out of me for something I did wrong. I was crying because I was failing the class because I couldn’t keep up with the learning material. I knew early on that I was a fuck-up, and this school wasn’t in my league and wasn’t even close to my family’s ability to pay for it. And now, with all these thousands of dollars in debt and all those efforts my mother put into me by working three jobs at a time, I was failing her and myself. I gave up on myself that night. My tears were falling like Niagara Falls, but there was no way out for me. I knew I would be miserable today, but I had to get my shit together tomorrow and make it all work.

I also had to work part-time at a restaurant on the weekends and study full-time during the week. At the restaurant, the work seemed like nothing. It was fun. It was my time off from anything else that was going on in my life. Also, we could drink alcohol at work, and pretty much all those years were full of insane hangovers and sleep deprivation mix-up with cigarette smoke. This was my twenties, people. Then all hungover and tired, I would show up to my classes on Monday after a long, tiring, and drinking weekend, trying to educate myself. Fuck, these were some crazy times. I never knew who I really wanted to be in life. I picked the major, but it all was foggy and unclear and too difficult to imagine this adult life I was preparing myself for. I remember looking at the expensive car with nicely dressed and good-looking people and thinking, damn, they’ve made it. I want to be like them one day. I want to achieve something in this life. I couldn’t even realize what life would bring for me in the next ten years and how things would turn around. I guess if you were not born into wealth, you have a very long and exhausting road ahead of you. Few people can come from total misery and break into the rich men’s world. Many people are stuck in poverty with their proletarian mindsets, and they never break through anything.

Life is also a journey, and it ends whenever it does. Nobody knows when our time will come. Nobody should know this either. We all have to make the best out of today. Live to the fullest and enjoy every little moment because we have this great opportunity to do so. And no matter how much older we’ve become, we all should feel like those youngsters in those old pictures of us, smiling, happy, and free. They might not bring back our youth, but they will remind you how it was once. Amen.

Turning 35

~ John Loraine ~ 13 Comments

Today I have turned 35 years old. I am halfway there, as they say. If I somehow reach 65-70, I will be retired. An old, rusty, angry retired asshole. 35 doesn’t seem as old as I would think when I was younger. I am certainly not a fucking teenager anymore, but I am young at heart, and I kept myself pretty damn well. Honestly, I feel much fucking better physically and mentally than I did at 25. Fuck 25 and 20, anything. That was the most confusing, weird, challenging, and one hell-on-a-bender experience I assume most youngsters have to go through. I am glad I lived through that shit and didn’t have to worry about it anymore. At 35, life just begins. I am now starting to think straight, getting shit done, reaching new levels, and securing a decent life for my family and me. There is a bunch of shit I’ve learned over the years, and that is what I want to share with you. I’d like to look back at these 35 pearls of wisdom and see if any of them hold up to my older age. Who knows.

  1. There is no time like the present. As cliche as it sounds, it is fucking true. Do not wait for fucking anything or anybody. Do it now. If you fail, fuck it. At least you’ll know. If you succeed. Great, well done, motherfucker.
  2. Time is the most valuable asset anyone has. Time flies; the older you become, the faster the time goes. Wasting time means wasting your life. Do not spend your time on stupid shit. Today you’re a child; tomorrow, you are on your deathbed. Think about all the time you had in life and what you did with it. Do you have any regrets?
  3. Always rely on yourself and your own abilities, no matter what. It is great if there is someone to give you a hand. This point might not be much required for you then. But in most cases, if you learn to be independent and rely on yourself, you will be better off.
  4. True friends are always with you in the worst situations. There will always be too many people to have fun with, but there will be very few or just one who will stick with you and be around and sacrifice anything to help you out. That is a true friend. Others should not be invited to any of your BBQs.
  5. Always be in great physical shape. Workouts are not just to slim down or become the next greatest fucking bodybuilder. Exercises train your body, discipline your mind, and make the real fucking man out of you.
  6. Sleep is essential. Do not fuck up your sleep schedule for anything. It is as important as your overall health. If you are sleep deprived, you are fucked, nothing feels great, life is shit, and your health will decline. It is just not worth it.
  7. Intermittent fasting should be part of the daily ritual. There is more science to that than just simply losing weight. Intermittent fasting will help burn extra fat, clear your bloodstream, clear and sharpen your mind, give you more energy, and lower your fucking sugar, cholesterol, and all other shit roaming in your body, making you feel like shit.
  8. Marry the right woman. Anything else before or after this point will be accomplished if you have the right woman to share your life with. The right woman is not the one that has the most enormous boobs or won the beauty contest. The right woman is the one that will let you be you, a better you than you have ever been.
  9. There is no more extensive and stronger love you can experience than the love towards your child. You can love your mother a lot. You can love your wife or girlfriend a lot, but when you become a parent, your love for your child will overwhelm you unless you’re a fucking robot.
  10. Always learn from your mistakes and others. Analyze your life, decisions, and misbehavior, and fix that shit moving forward. Nobody’s perfect, but the less dumb shit you’d do, the better your life will become.
  11. Being a parent is fucking cool. People who never became a parent will not understand. There is nothing to be afraid of for people who are not yet parents. You will enter a new level of your life. And it will be a better life. A life worth living and struggling for.
  12. If you want to have a great time, you have to have a great watch. Be a true gentleman and always wear a decent quality watch on your wrist. I don’t mean the expensive thousands-dollar brand, just a good mechanical, automatic, or even quartz watch. Yes, you have your phone with you all the time, and you have your fucking Apple watch or some other shit. Wear something with a soul in it, some mechanics that help you go through your life and show you the good and tough times. There is no better sound than the ticking of a watch mechanism.
  13. Clean your room, clean your house, clean your desk, clean your life. This will help you to get organized and know where your shit is at all times. Also, you will look like a professional and a responsible person instead of a constantly distracted asshole who spends half a day trying to find his socks.
  14. Read books, always. Books are the best friends, the best companions, the best source of knowledge, the best therapy, and the best inspiration. It is always hard to find time, but if you try, you will enjoy every second of reading a great book and always look out and dedicate time to reading.
  15. If the book you are reading sucks, put it away. Not every book should fit your soul and mind at the time, and some might never fit your preferences. There are so many great books to read and discover, so if the one you are reading is not keeping you engaged, fuck it. Pick another one that might open a brand new world for you.
  16. Meditations are essential. There is no more and simpler way to clear up your brain and calm down your horses than as little as five minutes of meditation. Just sit back, close your eyes, and listen to your breath. That’s it. You got it. Do that whenever you feel like you’re about to lose your shit.
  17. Most people are assholes, and you will have to deal with them all your life. That’s it, just remember that.
  18. Never be afraid of asking questions regardless of how stupid they might seem to you. If you don’t ask, you might never know for sure. You might do something stupid. You might make a big mistake. Just ask. What that fuck is wrong with you? Asking cost nothing.
  19. Always be friendly and courageous to other people. Even if people around you are indeed assholes, there are too many of them anyway. Be nice, smile, greet, talk, and acknowledge their presence. They might not be completed morans. You might find a new friend that way.
  20. Always stick for and help those in need, those who are weaker, smaller, older, or unable to help themselves. You might go to heaven for that. Why not pick up somebody else’s slack?
  21. If you don’t like your job, don’t stick around, leave. Fuck those jobs that suck the living soul out of you. There is always another job out there somewhere. You’ll get it. And if that one will not work out for you, you’ll find another one, and another one, until you retire or die before retirement.
  22. Do not buy into the job family bullshit. This is a corporate trick to make you more loyal and stick around, depend on that paycheck, while they fucking you in the ass, taking away your health, your precious time, your sanity, your personal life, and then once you are no longer needed, they’ll fire your ass.
  23. Family should always be first. If you prioritize your job or anything else, chances are high you are an asshole, you will lose your family, and you will never know what it is like to have a great family, to begin with.
  24. Forgive and be forgiven. There is no happy ending in always holding a grudge against anybody. If possible, face that shit straight, face-to-face, figure it out, talk it out. If you are willing to forgive, you will also be forgotten, no matter what you did.
  25. Enjoy every little moment. You cannot live this life twice. You cannot take anything with you once you are gone. Life is tough and unpredictable; what you have right now is not guaranteed tomorrow. You might gain everything in one day or lose everything overnight. Enjoy the little moments and remember how great they are.
  26. Music is fucking great. Great music is even better. Always listen to some great music, whatever your mood is at the time, whatever music genre you prefer, it is all good. Just listen to some beats and sounds and take it fucking easy.
  27. People don’t always say what they mean and don’t always mean what they say. Know how to separate honest talk from bullshit. Learn how to read people, and read between the lines. It is a critical skill that will definitely help you in life, whatever you do.
  28. Sunsets and sunrises are fucking awesome. Try to see as many of them in your life as you can. Whether it is the beginning of the day’s end, the sky turning colors as the sun moves up or down, making a new beginning, or finalizing yet another day, it is so powerful and beautiful to see that missing or ignoring them is stupid. It is also a very inspirational and thought-provoking moment you will never be tired of experiencing.
  29. Enjoy a good whiskey or bourbon with ice like a real man. What can be better than that?
  30. Spend more time at the ocean on the beach. It is always a relaxing and therapeutic experience, and all the bullshit in your life will go the fuck away shortly.
  31. Do not follow the masses. Have your own opinion always. Masses are dumb for the most part, and it is getting old trying to catch up with Joneses. Fuck them all. Live your life.
  32. Always dedicate time to yourself to be alone. If you are not comfortable being alone, you have problems, pal. Everyone has to get away, even a little bit, to be in their own mind and thoughts and recharge before jumping into another social, family, or job chaos.
  33. Politics is shit. Always has been and always will be. There is nobody to trust and nobody to rely on.
  34. Always put yourself in somebody else shoes. Be compassionate. It is easy to see things with your eyes from your perspective, but everyone is different, and if you want to better feel or understand another person, you’ve got to see the world from their standpoint.
  35. Life is too short to wait for retirement. Live now. Enjoy life while it lasts. We all have a one-way ticket and never know when this will end. Fuck it all. It is not all that bad, after all.

No matter how hard your shit is right now, we can be heroes just for one day.

Mama was right

~ John Loraine ~ 15 Comments

The story I am about to tell happened to me fifteen years ago. It might not seem like a very good or an interesting story but it makes me feel shameful of my own ego even today. This story is one of the many examples from my personal life that taught me an important life lesson. I guess they call it a turning point. It might as well be one of the turning points that changed my perception and appreciation for my mother, my family, and life in general.  

This story takes place around December, my first semester at junior college. It was just another Friday night and the four of us were hanging out. We roamed around the City, did some shopping then we had dinner someplace and a few drinks. It was a great time. I still feel good thinking about those days. And to be clear, I haven’t had any social life before then, so to me, those days were pretty good in terms of getting some life and getting to know people around me. I, my friend Gene, his girlfriend, and my new girlfriend were best friends in college. We did everything together. We all came to America in about the same time, we all were about the same age. We started college same time, took the same classes, and went out for lunches, coffee breaks, smoke breaks, and double dates.  

I was in my first year of college trying to become a decent student and eventually a decent citizen and proud office worker. It all starts in college somehow. Back then I knew a few wise things which I always kept on my: 1) I am nobody here, 2) I don’t know anybody who can help me, and 3) I need to make shit happen for me somehow. These three things basically defined my understanding of life and were driving me through the college years and eventually into the workforce. These were the thoughts of a young immigrant teenager who was brought to this country to have a better shot at life with a single mother who worked multiple jobs to support me and my brother. 

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