( This piece has no literary value. From the late-night beer-infused Saturday night rant series)
The cold beer feels great going down my throat. I actually feel fucking great. I fucking love my beer. I fucking love to just sit back, play some music, drink my beer, knowing that there is nothing else I have to or want to do. There is a vinyl record spinning on the turntable. I realized that I hadn’t used the turntable in a while. What a shame. I have over two hundred records collecting dust, but I am not doing shit about it. I know I have them. I know where they are. I realize what a bunch of great fucking record collections I have, but I’m just too busy dealing with life to enjoy that music. I just keep forgetting to get back to it, to enjoy it a little bit. There are records that I acquired years ago, and I still remember where I bought them and sometimes even how much I paid for them. Certain memories stay with you forever. They might not always be the most important memories, but there is something special about them, so I still have some recollection of the time and space, my life then, my experiences, and my thoughts… Music is one of the greatest things in life. It can be both tangible and intangible. You can just sing the song out loud, and it would make you feel happy. But also, you can have a 180 mg vinyl playing on the turntable, which would bring the greatest joy and satisfaction. I am not a hoarder, but I do love collecting certain things. I love to have them, to see them, to touch them, to smell them. I am a young fella, but I do love the old shit. The old music makes me feel great. The black and white movies make me happy as well. It seems like back in the old days of black and white TV, or when music was pressed on vinyl, life was so much fucking better. It seems like life back then was more fun, it was more real, and authentic, and you could feel and smell things and get a great sense of the past life. I get some sort of weird nostalgia while experiencing the old things, the old school, the old way. I think that even cigarettes were a hundred times better for you back then. Somehow, the more we advance as a civilization, the deeper we get into the nowhere. Somehow the things are so fucking dull and tasteless and surreal that I don’t even what to be part of any of it. Fuck it all. I want to be real. I want the real shit. I want good wine or beer, a good piece of meat, a good cigarette, and fresh morning air filling my lungs. I want the smell of a freshly printed paperback. Nothing smells better than a fresh, brand-new paperback or a cup of great, freshly brewed coffee. I mean, how much do you really need to be happy? If you really think about it, it is not that much. The little things always make the man feel alive, feel like a man, and that life is worth something. These are the nights in white satin, and there is so much about the nights, and satin, and music, and beer, and life, and cigarette burning in your hand while you sit back and let go. Just go on. Let me take a little breather. Let me take a little break from all the fucking madness, for fuck’s sake. Do I have to be present, worried, and responsible for everything? Sometimes, I feel like I can move mountains. But sometimes, the opposite is true. Sometimes, I just want to fuck off. I want to sit on my sofa in my basement, endlessly drinking my beer while listening to music and writing down all my nonsense. One day, I decided I wanted to be a writer. And I became one. I don’t write all that much, but I have written a lot. I am trying to be to stay productive. Before, it felt like a foreign concept. It felt like a dream. And then, some days later, I made that dream come true. I made that dream come to life, giving me something to live for and strive for. It usually takes me a lot of time to come around, but when I do, I am on it. I love watching myself becoming a new me. The old me was a dick, a confused nobody, a lowlife, a useless fuck. Once I overcame that mental roadblock and explored new territories, things started to move, to come about, and things started to happen. Good shit started to happen. And I couldn’t be more happy with that. I couldn’t be more happy with myself. And I couldn’t be happier seeing myself producing the words through poems and the short stories that eventually became books years later. Fuck. I fucking made it. I fucking made it happen. I became a true writer. Something that was just a dream and some sort of delusional obsession had become my new reality. I am a writer with two self-published books, and the third one is in the closing stages. I am doing something. I am being productive, maybe not as productive as I could’ve been, but slowly and surely, shit is happening. And now, looking back, I don’t feel bad at all. I feel satisfied. I feel like I made my dream a reality. I am a writer. Even though no fans are knocking at my door. Even though there are no sales and book lists. Even though there are no book deals, I still outperformed my old self from those early desperate years, and I have some proof to show for it. But mainly, I proved to myself that the dream is possible. A simple dream is possible for anyone, even losers, as I have been for most of my life. Dream your dreams, my friend, and go after them. It will open a new world for you worth something. It is definitely much better than sitting on your ass doing nothing at all, waiting for death to come and take you away, or waiting for the next day, just hopelessly hoping it would bring anything better. I waited a fair amount of time in my life this far. I have no fucking patience no more. I want it all, and I want it now. I have no time to waste. I have no time to lose. The only fucking thing I do have besides my sorry-ass is the time, and I am on that fucker all the time. I hate to waste time. I hate to lose it. I hate somebody else taking and wasting my fucking time. I guess there is a reason why I own ten watches. I do fucking have a deep appreciation for the time and watchmaking, indeed. I cherish every minute that goes by, goes sideways, into infinity as I get older and wiser or dumber, or whatever. Time is a fascinating thing. It comes through you and leaves scars on your soul and face in the form of sadness, anxiety, deep wrinkles, gray hair, and bad eyesight. Time is all we have…
Silver Mercedes-Benz E-class pulled out of the parking space and slowly rolled out of the huge rectangular parking lot towards the gates on the west side of the corporate building. The twenty-year-old car was well polished, with clean, shiny rims and tires, and with original light-blue window tint, and it never looked true to its age. Behind the wheel was a man in his mid-thirties with a mid-size black beard and dark aviator shades. The man was dressed in a nice, white-crisp dress shirt, black jeans, and black dress shoes. His name was John Brahmovski. He was exiting the company’s parking lot and heading home. It was time. It was five minutes past five o’clock.
One after another, cars pulled out of the parking lot, exiting the premises. The working day was over. Now, people were living on their own time, at their own expense, heading home thinking about the rest of the day, their homes, families, bills to pay, dinner to eat, friends to visit, kids to take care of, or just get home and binge-watch something on TV. This is our modern life, and we are all part of it in one way or another, and there are many ways to live it. We all have our choices, and we all make our choices. As long as we all have a job, we are good. There was at least one less thing to worry about on those warm, sunny, late-summer evenings.
The man in his mid-thirties pulled closer to the gates and waited for them to open. The motion sensors on the black metal gates triggered and pulled to the left, letting cars exit the parking lot. The man hit the right turn signal and joined the early evening post-work traffic. Inside the car, loud rock music was playing from the CD through the half-open window, and the man searched around with his right hand for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He hasn’t smoked all day. He was dying for a cigarette. This has been his first day on the new job. This might as well be the first day of his new life. Just yesterday, he’s been unemployed or unemployable, as he often joked about himself, and now he was back in business.
The new job was with a respected car company, and the pay was decent. His new team seemed like a bunch of good people from first sight, and the first day overall went pretty damn smoothly. There was nothing to worry about. It was time to relax, take it easy, and enjoy the ride while it lasted. He knew damn well that there was no security with any jobs anywhere anymore. There was no hope for tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. There is only one hope to make it home to see your family, have dinner with them, have a glass or two of red wine, and smoke a cigarette before going to bed, forgetting about the day passing. As he joined the traffic, he lit his cigarette and exhaled a huge cloud of smoke through his window and into the evening traffic. It felt liberating. It felt really good. Smoking is never fucking good for nobody, but also are so many other things that make a man feel great. Somehow, the only healthy things are the ones nobody wants to do or consume. Paradox. There was always this side and the other side. He was too young to think about the other side yet. Life has just begun. Fuck it all. Live and let live, man. Just keep it simple and keep it rolling until the wheels come off.
Mercedes was rolling on the highway, switching lanes frequently, depending on the traffic. He was an experienced driver. He saw, reacted, acted, and made his moves smoothly, feeling the traffic, reading the road and the lanes, and feeling for those who didn’t know how to drive in that evening madness. He exhaled the thick white cigarette smoke up in the air as the music blasted on the car speakers. Cigarette, music, speed, new job; he had plenty of reasons to be excited. Life wasn’t fair to him for a while, and it almost felt strange to see it change in such a new and much better direction. Why not be happy for once? Sometimes the sun shines through the rain, motherfucker, he recalled the quote from an old classic rock song. Here comes the sun over my head, he thought, driving seventy miles per hour with his front window half open and the five o’clock sun warming his face from the West.
At home, his wife and their three-year-old son were waiting for him. He was excited to see them again after a long day at work. They’ve been inseparable for a long time, and now daddy has a new job. John was unemployed for the last five months as it was a pain in the ass to land a new gig. The prior job fired him based on poor performance. John disagreed with that conclusion as he always worked his ass off working long and late hours to get the job done. No attempts of his to make it all work were appreciated. He got no support on that job, only criticism. Fuck ‘em all, he thought. He actually thought about that firing a lot over the months that passed. He knew those fucks hated him, and he grew up to hate them back. Feelings were mutual, and the firing wasn’t a surprise to nobody at the end of the day. He had no choice. He accepted that, knowing that he was used and betrayed. Yet another corporate bullshit he had stumbled upon. That kind of shit just never ends. The saddest thing was that he was his family’s primary and only breadwinner, and they enjoyed living off his six-figure salary for the last two years. There was never a concern about grocery shopping, buying things, month-long vacations in Florida, going out to dinners, or meeting friends, and countless evenings around the family dinner table with light jazz music, a nice meal, and a top-shelf bottle of nice red wine. It all ended in one day, and they had to readjust to a new, humble, conservative life. As time went by and the countless job searches led nowhere, his shit was out of luck. He thought about his future and his family’s future more than ever.
John wrote in his journal about the day he received Food Stamps.
“I checked my mail late in the evening after taking out my trash, and the Food Stamps card came in the mail. Inside, opened the letter, and there it was. The help from the government to me because I have fallen so low in life. I looked at it, and within seconds, I felt both sadness and embarrassment, as I had not felt for a very long time. There was more embarrassment than anything else that I felt at that moment, and I feel the same fucking embarrassment right now thinking about that Food Stamps card that has been untouched on my island table since it came yesterday. It needs activation. I need re-activation in my life as never before. I came from a six-figure salary down to this, a Food Stamps card, and two-and-a-half-month delayed unemployment compensation, which I also received earlier this week. I had to cash out my 401K plan savings from my old job a few weeks ago, losing around 4K in that transaction. And that is my life now. I never worried about saving money or spending while I had a job. Now, I have nothing, and nothing is even close to a potential future opportunity. I have fucking hit the rock bottom yet again. How did I get here? Where did I make the wrong move? I always thought I was following the rules and doing the right thing. I have signed up to do the right thing since my early days. Now, this right thing is no longer required, needed, or helped me in any way.”
Interstate 95 was busy that evening, and John navigated the traffic as well as he could. He was not in a rush. The rush was over for him. He enjoyed this great new feeling that overwhelmed him. That was the feeling of new beginnings. The feeling of hope, new life, and a new chance, a new journey. He felt worthless so much and so often that knowing that there was a job now that needed you and paid you well, and you could be great at it, and you could build your fucking career, as a result, was a great feeling. Also, he was mainly happy because he could provide for his family again, just like in the good old days. Over the last five months, we felt like shit often. His hands were tight, nobody needed him at the job, and there were no decent jobs to get into. All he had was his loving family, his balls, and his persistence. Sometimes, there are no other options but waiting. Wating is a killer of the soul. He’s been waiting forever. There was always something else dragging him down, staying in his way, other people who were just shitty fake people he had to deal with. There was always too little or too much of everything happening at the same time. There were a lot of great moments, but there was very little to no time to enjoy them because of this or that; mainly, there was too much job bullshit in his world, and he had to make it work somehow in the name of providing a great life for his family. He would do anything for his family.
“I do feel sad somehow. I do feel sad and useless that I am unemployed. I know that having a job at least makes you somewhat important to society and makes you feel better about the opportunity to provide for your family. I am living on my last dimes, and I don’t give a fuck about society. But I still feel down. I feel like after 50+ applications that I’ve completed and the interviews I’ve done this far, all went to shit. I don’t even feel like joining a professional workforce, but I know that I have to. The longer I am unemployed, the worse it is for me. I wish I could be as happy as I thought I could be, but I am not. The unemployment checks have not come yet; I would feel more secure once they get through. That is not much, but it is something. Right now, I will run out of money in about a month. My credit card is getting filled with more misery each day, and I know I have to spend money. I need to spend money, but also, I know that that shit will be hanging over me like a fucking seesaw. I want to be in the moment and enjoy this present moment, but I can’t. I am just not. I feel like a loser without a job or income and not much money left to live on. I would have to spend my mother’s or my son’s savings, which breaks my heart and makes me feel even more miserable. I don’t want to spend all this precious vacation time applying for jobs. I just do a bare minimum to satisfy the unemployment claim, but these fuckers haven’t completed a single of my claims yet. I don’t know what to do. I sent them an email today. I need to be more proactive with that shit. I need that misery of compensation regardless.”
It was about an hour and ten minutes commute home. It was just enough time to be with yourself and process life while driving. John’s car turned onto his neighborhood’s street, where everything seemed familiar and felt like home. The sun was still up and shining through the window of the car. He smiled, happy to see his house down the street, the second to last house on the right. Other neighbors returned from work, filling the street with their cars. John parked by his house and went inside. His three-year-old son heard him coming in and ran towards him, screaming excitedly and smiling. John picked him up, raised him high, and hugged and kissed his son. He missed that kid so much. It was always good to be back home. There was a smell of something cocking coming from the oven, and he knew that his wife was cooking something good for dinner.
“Hey, welcome back, daddy,” said John’s wife. “How was your first day at work?”
“Hey, I missed you guys,” John hugged and kissed her. “It was alright. Actually, it’s better than expected. I think this might be a good place to work overall. I work with nice people, have a nice office and a friendly environment. I’ve been looking for this job for a long time, and finally, I found what I was looking for.”
“That’s great to hear. I am glad that you like your new place.”
“Yeah, I am glad too. I was ready for anything after such a long break from work, and I would take anything at this point, but thank God, this job doesn’t suck. Fingers crossed, I can stick around at least for the duration of the twelve-month contract, and then we will see.”
“Sounds good. I’m almost done cooking the salmon, and the rice is ready. Go change, and we’ll have dinner.”
“How was the little one behaving today?”
“He was good for about five minutes, then became restless. We went outside to play, we did shopping, we tried to sleep in the afternoon, but he couldn’t, so he’s been playing and running around all day long.”
“Got it. Hopefully, he’s tired by now, and we’ll put him to bed earlier today.”
“Fingers crossed. But that kid never seemed to be tired. I am ready to go to bed right now.”
“I hear you.”
“OK. Go change quickly. Dinner is getting ready. We are so hungry, and I hope you are hungry too.”
“Yes, I am. Very hungry.” Said John and left upstairs to change.
Family dinner around the table was his favorite thing. He loved seeing his family close together, eating, listening to light jazz music on the speaker, talking, laughing, and enjoying each other’s company. He opened the cabinet and pulled out a bottle of red wine. It was a perfect occasion to have good wine for dinner with his family. It became a tradition in a way. John’s wife served the dinner, and they all ate like a small, happy family. People don’t need much to be happy, after all.
After dinner, he bathed his son in the bathtub, and his wife went to put their son to sleep. John cleaned the table and the dishes loaded the dishwasher, and sat on the rocking chair to relax. A nightstand lamp lit the room with a warm yellow light, and the classical music played in low volume on the speaker. John sat there and looked around. It was still unbelievable to him that he made it this far through all the bullshit he had to deal with along the way. Life wasn’t easy. It never is. One has to be strong to make it through and to make it work.
Plenty of times, his hope dissolved in the daily misery and chronic depression that overtook him occasionally. He knew that sooner or later, the job would eventually present itself. The only concern was the timing. Time was never on his side. Time was running out and running fast, along with all his savings, and then there were problems, concerns, anxiety, and depression. In two weeks, it would be his thirty-sixth birthday. Birthdays were not exciting anymore. The more you mature, the more you realize that life wasn’t easy with all the problems piling up, unbearable hangovers, there was no time for anything, and there always was too much to deal with every single day. But now, things would be different. Now, there is another chance. The chance he was waiting for a very long fucking time.
John smoked a cigarette outside before going to bed. It was a warm and dark summer night. He could see the stars above and the planes going back and forth about their business. John watched the nightly sky often, and often, he thought to himself how huge this world is, how infinite the sky is, and that there are so many things out there in the universe and the world. He was just so insignificant, almost invisible part of it. Since his childhood, he has always dreamed about his big future. He was always full of hope or just a hopeful fool. Life had its plan for him, and slowly, it unfolded before him. Just yesterday, he was a useless, broke, unemployed, miserable man, staring at the same sky, wondering and asking questions. Today, his world has changed. He knew it. He felt it. He changed inside, even though one couldn’t tell yet. Somehow, he felt a bit of sadness deep down. It wasn’t the kind of sadness that you feel when you are depressed. It was the good kind of sadness you feel when you know you’ve moved on to the better things, the new beginnings.
Back at home, he opened his laptop and wrote in his journal before bed. Tomorrow is a new day, and he will have another chance.
Journal, August 1, 2023
“Well, here I go again. My favorite month of the year is here. It is the month I was born. It is the beginning of a new life, in a way. It is the first day of my new job at this new company. The first day came and went pretty damn calm and easy. I loved the environment, and overall, the fucking office was the best I ever worked at. The people I will be working with all seemed to be nice. There seemed to be some sort of special and relaxed vibes in that place, which surprised me. I mean, the last company supposedly had a nice group of people, but something felt terribly wrong since day one. Here, it is not like that. It’s kind of relaxing. Or maybe I have matured and grown a pair of balls, and I am no longer an anxious and fearful little asshole, afraid of everything and everybody. The office, for the first time in my life, is not fucking freezing cold. From the fifth story, I have a beautiful view of Philly’s downtown skyscrapers on one side and the rest of New Jersey on the other. From what I’ve seen and heard, this job is definitely a few levels up from where I came from. I have to catch up quickly and well. I mean, I am new, and they tolerate that for now, but I have to step up so I don’t embarrass myself and don’t disappoint these nice people and myself. I will do my best. I mean, what the fuck else am I supposed to do? I’ve got my new chance in life and my career, and everything looks promising. I hope to evolve and acclimate fast and well. I am so fucking tired of constantly looking for new jobs, changing jobs, running away from my insecurities, and looking for something almost impossible to find. I mean, let’s make something out of this one. I have a twelve-month contract. They could fire me way before that if I fuck up. So I need not to fuck up or, at least, survive the next twelve months there, learn as much as I can, and my career horizon would expand significantly for any future opportunity. Well, will see how it is all going to play out. At the moment, I am happy where I am. I will try not to fuck it up. I will try to step up to the game in the best possible way. I am fucking happy I’ve landed this new fucking job at last. Thank you, God, and everybody who prayed, helped, supported, and contributed. I do have another chance at it. I am out of Business Analytics for good if this job doesn’t go well. But in the meantime, I am ready to take my chances and for this new life in front of me. Good things are fucking happening. Thanks God.”
The clock struck twelve am six minutes ago, and that’s how you know it is the beginning of another day. It is still very early or late, depending on how you look at it. How do you look at it? I haven’t slept yet, so it is getting late, and somebody might just be waking up. Who the fuck knows? It is five o’clock somewhere in the world. I am up and about my business, sitting around on my couch typing whatever nonsense comes to my head. What else is there to do? I don’t have a job to go to. It is Saturday, to begin with. The kid is asleep, and so is my wife. I am the only weirdo in the family who likes to stay up late and drink and write and ramble about random shit. So, here we go. Another shitstorm begins. I am listening to the greatest heavy metal playlist I have ever created, and it kicks ass. It has everything that I need this night to get me through. And I have plenty of beer to help me along. “I don’t believe in love” comes from the speaker by Queensryche band, which sounds really sad and romantic at the same time. Love is love. Love is us. Love is life. Love is losing your mind. Love is ruthless. Somebody must have had a bad relationship after all. Haven’t we all had at least one? Sometimes the shit goes sideways, and you know you are trapped here unless you make that tough decision. And sometimes you feel like, fuck, I might give it another chance. I just don’t want to act on impulse anymore. This still might work out to the best. And often, it doesn’t. I learned it the hard way. I have nothing to hold back. I have no regrets. Whatever happened, happened, what’s next is up to me. I moved on a long time ago because I wanted something new, fresh, authentic, and something that felt right. Not that same old annoying, soul-killing horseshit that I know would never end. We all should move on. Should you follow your head, or should you follow your heart? That is a question that has no right answer. Sometimes it’s the first. Sometimes, it’s the second. And sometimes it is both. I did both many times. I thought it was right to follow my heart because this is where the truth was. Because following your heart would make you happy. Many times it is just a bunch of bullshit. Many times, you should be wise enough to separate the delusion from reality. We all learn this too late after the fuckup settles down. I am looking at my typewriter, which I received for my 35th birthday. I only used it several times since last year. It is a sad acknowledgment. I still prefer my laptop for writing. It is much quicker and almost noiseless. That fucking machine is too loud, and the time is always wrong for me to use it. I think this machine could wake up my neighbors. I want my neighbors to be happy. I don’t want any shit from anybody. But that is not my point. My point is that I am not fully living the life I aspired to live. I want to be a writer and a great writer with that. I am not. A glass half full. I suck. But I still write. Some minimal improvements are happening along the way. I am just not letting it all go to shit. I still want to be here and to write and, one fucking long-time coming day, become a great American writer. What’s wrong with my wish? Nothing. It is my wish. I can wish for whatever the fuck I want. Not everyone was born with that kind of desire. Many people are asleep now or at the bar somewhere or watching the fucking TV in their beds, but I am here, typing, drinking, smoking, and writing. I want to be here. I have planned this moment for myself to be here and to do this, and l love it. And I do what I love and do not have much else to do. History repeats itself yet again. Nobody learned from history nothing. We all are repeating the same fucking lame mistakes or are falling into the same fucking traps as we all did back in the day. I have been fired from a job for the third time since my professional employment began over ten years ago. I am still young, sharp, and driven, sometimes or most of the time. I don’t give much shit about any corporate agendas. I am just trying to play the game right. And sometimes, you can get by, and sometimes you can’t. And I was just too fucking tired and annoyed with all that playing around and pushing it along with nobody else giving much fuck. At the same time, work consumed me and my life and my mind and my soul, leaving me with misery and stress and depression and bleeding. I knew this would happen to me one day. It always does. But I kept that bullshit going. I was too happy and comfortable to see a steady bi-weekly paycheck in my bank account, and I was all right with selling my soul to the devil. Am I a sellout? To some extent, yes. But why would anybody reject a well-paying job? Let me milk this cow until there is no milk left, until all the well dries off until I am sick and tired of doing it. My biggest problem was that I hadn’t spent enough time on my writing while busy with a fucking job. That’s why my typewriter wasn’t utilized as it should have been. That’s why I haven’t written as much as I had hoped. That’s how the comfortable living made me fucking lazy and made me a slave to the system. I partially gave up on anything near and dear to my heart and followed the dollar signs. Now, I don’t have anything to my name. All I have is just me. All I have are just my proletarian hopes, dreams, and useless inspirations. Why wouldn’t I follow my dreams? Why wouldn’t I bank on my writing career? Why do I always feel guilty when I have to enjoy every little fucking moment of my life because I am only going around once!? No, there’s no one home in my house of pain except me. I am sitting here and meditating on some deep life philosophy, trying to figure out where I did anything wrong, alone on my sad couch. It is really not that painful. It feels just about okay now. Actually, it feels fucking great not to go to work, not to work for a man, not to sacrifice anything of mine for the sake of others. I have my family with me. That is all I need. They make me go. I love them dearly. I don’t give a fuck about anything else at all. I just want to be around them always and be happy with them. I want to be a famous writer. I want to live and be completely independent no matter what I do. That is where the happiness is hiding, in that strange, obscure territory. Every time you tell yourself no or go against your heart, something slowly dies inside you, and the light turns into darkness, and a little piece of your life goes nowhere. I’d rather have my life be more meaningful and enjoyable, no matter how long or short. I want to live however I want, regardless of whether that plays against anybody else’s agenda. Fuck them all. This is my life. This is my beer. This is my writing. This is my soul. Life is great. I love it no matter what. No matter the weather, I am here, and I am alive, and I can always make shit happen. And I should always make shit happen for me. Sometimes, it is good to go away. Sometimes relocation is an option and a great one. Sometimes, you can’t move your brain somewhere else and forget about your existence, always pilling up more problems. Sometimes you just got to live that fucking life you’ve always wanted because there might not be another tomorrow. Or the tomorrow you will see will be full of shit and misery, and there might not be a place for you. Buddhists don’t rely on logic. They believe in enlightenment (nirvana) that comes from within, and no logic or intellect can do the same or explain that phenomenon. And I think this makes total fucking sense in my situation right now. The only way to see your life from a different perspective is to live your life like you never did but always wanted. And that means to go against the rules, against common sense, against logic, intellect, the rationality, against anything traditional or normal, against anything that others say or think, and just be there, enjoy that moment, live it fully, see it from the other side, feel the power of being you, feel the power of being a rouge, feel the power of a unique perspective and thinking and capture that experience forever, and let it remind you that you can do whatever the fuck you want and enjoy it because most of the others can’t. They’re too weak, too scared, too insecure, too normal, and too shallow. When do you think you should be fully living and enjoying this life? When you retire? How fucking sure are you that you will ever retire? How fucking sure that there will be any fucking energy or life or passion left in you when you fucking pushing 70 and you don’t have to go to work every day. But then, what do you do? Travel the world? Why wouldn’t you travel it now? Drink all the drinks, fuck all you can, smoke all you can, travel all you can, and do whatever fuck you want to do now while there is some light and life and energy, passion, and spirit inside of you begging for more and begging for freedom now. Why would you want to suppress that? For a steady paycheck? For job security? For healthcare insurance? For acknowledgment from others? For economy? For fucking what? “Your life is your life, don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission,” these great words by Charles Bukowski from the poem “The Laughing Heart” are so true and inspiring and so spot on. That’s why I love Bukowski. His poems have a lot of wisdom for an average man to understand, especially this poem. This is why I am writing. This is why I am still at it. This is why I often question myself about how to live this fucking life, so I don’t lose or don’t end up in fucking misery. I might not live forever, but my words and my wisdom can. As long as these are true worlds, as long as these words mean something, they will. They resonate with another lost soul and help it move forward, explore, take risks, and get that one experience that will change the life forever. I am one decision away from getting to where I always wanted to be. It is not a logical or not rational decision, but it will lead me to my happy place. Those Buddhists were on to something. I’m sure. Is the longing for something beautiful, truly inspiring, and relaxing worth the risk of hitting rock bottom? Is it worth risking the uncertainty of tomorrow for a few days of happiness? Is money always a major obstacle in getting to where you want to be? They say being scared means you’re about to do something really brave. Don’t let the unknown stop you from progressing. Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire. And that fire should keep you warm and safe all the time, and all other bullshit will go away. Amen!
It doesn’t take too much to be happy. Not much money and not much effort at all. My family was happy again while visiting Sarasota for the second time this year in July. I saw honest and pure smiles on my wife’s face. My kid was happy, too. He’s changed over the last twenty-four hours for the best. This is the place to be. This is the place to live and enjoy and be happy. Happy as one can be happy. This place, a thousand miles from our home, at the very South of the continent, is surrounded by water, alligators, snakes, golf courses, and the best beaches with the whitest sand surrounded by the warmest ocean with the most magnificent sunsets in the country, feels more like home than anything else. I fell in love with this place years ago, and every year, I cannot wait to come back there to just simply enjoy it. I think I found my home. It is here. It is in this ocean, in palms, in the humid air, sunshine, and the ocean breeze. My family loves to come down here. This place became part of my family tradition. This place became our new home. We are simply happy here. Period.
This year has been an interesting one, to say the least. Everything went a downward spiral, and I went down with it. I got fired yet again in early March and have been looking for a job since. The job search was, and pretty much has always been, a miserable experience. You are selling your soul to these corporate assholes for a stable paycheck and job security, and you try to stay optimistic and enthusiastic because you have to, and maybe somebody will say yes. Most of the time, you end up rejected. That is my story. Somehow I don’t feel like joining the workforce because I know sooner or later, I will get fucked over, fed up with all their nonsense and politics. I’ll be getting miserable waking up every morning hating my life, as the job is eating into my life, and the manic depression would settle over my head like the dark clouds before the hurricane. All those jobs, in my experience, ended similarly. There is no happy ending. There is no ending to that day-to-day working misery. It is always there. Fuck, how much I hate it all.
But the Gods were nice to me recently and gave me another chance. I’ve got another opportunity to prove myself in the corporate environment. I’ve got a new job at last. What will I do and how? I don’t know yet. Is that place the right place for me? I don’t know either. But I will be there. I will try yet again to make something work. I will try to do my best at it, and hopefully, if the stars align for me, I will make my history there and leave my mark. I hope everything is going to be alright. There is no reason to be upset. I am not upset at all. I am happy. I am happy because of this new chance and because I had another chance to spend time in my spiritual home, Sarasota, Florida.
In about two weeks, our lives will change. The change is inevitable, and it is coming, and we are expecting it to come and disrupt our family’s time together. I realize that as much time as I spent with my wife and kid this year, I will probably not have an opportunity anymore. In two weeks, each of us will have to follow our own direction, and our lives will be different. We are still a family, but life is about to happen, and it is about time to move on to the next stage of our lives. It is a healthy way of living. It is the way modern life works. We live here, and we have to follow those rules. There is no other way. I hope this change will be a great motivator for us, will bring us closer, and will make our time together even more pleasurable and precious. I know it will. I started to value my free time and my time with family only after I had the least amount of time to enjoy them. I cherished every minute spent, every occasion, every moment together. Sadly, when time is all we have and when you have all the time in the world, you don’t know what to do with it. It is only after the fact that you realize that there is not much time to spend on family quality time, and you know that you should focus on that more.
I am glad and fortunate that we are doing our best to be together and enjoy our life together. This is why we were in Florida again, and we were so happy there. I don’t know what the future holds. I don’t have any positive or negative inspiration for the future, as I know too many things I just cannot control. But what I can control is today. I can control how I behave in all those situations and make my way out of all the pitfalls. I can control my present to the best of my abilities and make it something great to think and feel about in the coming years. Then I can look back retrospectively and reminisce about the good old days when I wasn’t prioritizing the modern society’s norms and all those rules of the establishment, and where I wasn’t concerned about the money or job situation, but I was simply focused on making the best of what I have and genuinely enjoy it.
Today, I am making my own history. Today, the history of my family is being made. I am in control of my life and my family’s life. I am trying to do my best to create all those great moments for us to remember, to make us better together, and to love, cherish, respect, and value every minute of our family time. And I think we are doing just great. So long as we are together, so long…
I am turning thirty-fucking-six today. It is not a big deal, I could be eighty, and that, I suppose, would indicate that there is not much left. But since I am still early in my journey and am still alive and kicking and smelling the roses, I got to make my mark on my anniversary. I forgot my age for a moment, and I had to count it all again to make sure it was thirty-six exactly. I don’t feel like it, luckily. I am always nineteen in my heart, which is the most important thing, always feeling young. This last year wasn’t the best I ever had, but I don’t have much to complain about. It had its ups and downs, but I’ve made it. Things are turning to the best eventually, regardless of how shitty they’ve got. I am going through some moments right now, and based on how life goes, with every year, the birthday day becomes less and less important and less exciting. However, it is important for a couple of reasons. One is to reflect on your life and see where you’ve been and where you are going next. Also, it is a good way to start things from scratch, leave all the past bullshit behind you, and focus on building a new life. It’s kind of like New Year’s resolutions, you know what I mean? So, in my honor today, and so you have something to read and raise your IQs, I compiled a list of thirty-six random quotes which were relevant to me this last year from random people who said something smart once. These quotes are both inspirational, meaningful, and funny. I am not referencing the sources because it is too many, I don’t have time for it, and I don’t give a fuck. Some of these quotes are my own, but most are from other people, mostly famous. Happy birthday to me, and you, if you were ever lucky to be born on the same day and until the next one. Cheers, motherfuckers!
1. Once in a lifetime, never again 2. Good things are fucking coming 3. Mondays are awesome. It’s your job that sucks 4. Life’s too short to wait for retirement 5. If you going to do it, go all the way 6. Fuck ‘em! 7. We should not forget our beginner spirit 8. Life’s too short to drink cheap wine 9. We are the people who can have breakfast at any time 10. Life ain’t no sunshine and rainbows 11. You only go around once 12. Enjoy the ride 13. You can’t always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes you’ll get what you need 14. Desperate times call for desperate measures 15. If momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy 16. All those things that weren’t supposed to happen happened. What happens next is up to you 17. Discipline is what you hate to do, but do it as you love it 18. The dream is to die young, as late as possible 19. You are always one decision away from a totally different life 20. Survival has its costs 21. Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees 22. No, no, I don’t want to die. I want to live for the second time 23. The best way to find out if you can trust someone is to trust them 24. A man can be destroyed but not defeated. If he’s still standing, he can fight 25. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it 26. Success is a journey, not a destination 27. Any damn fool can beg up some kind of job; it takes a wise man to make it without working 28. Twenty years from now, you’ll be more disappointed by the things you did not do than the ones you did 29. There are only two things wrong with money: too much or too little. And there I was, down at the ‘too little’ stage again 30. My heroes are dead, my ambition is quite awake, I don’t believe in tragedy anymore, I believe in mystery 31. Love life, people, you only get it once 32. The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for the cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one 33. It’s thrilling not to know where you’re going 34. Your life is your life, don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission 35. Lighting new cigarettes, pouring more drinks. It has been a beautiful fight. Still is 36. …and the dance continues – so, it does…
I don’t know what I don’t know, but I do know something. It is hard to tell if I am wrong or right most of the time, but I have a logic to my madness. I don’t even know where all the madness comes from, but it is there. It is near. I can feel it. I can see it. I am it in a way. We are all crazy in one way or the other, and this is how this world works, and this is how this life works. It makes us all fucking crazy, you know it or not. The chaos can drive people crazy as much as too much discipline. We all try to bounce left or right or up and down to keep our balance, but it is not always easy. It is never easy. Nothing is easy, and nothing is free. Somebody has to pay for your lunch. We have the wisdom there is. We have philosophers, writers, and so many smart people to guide us, but we rarely listen. We’d rather make our own mistakes and learn from them, hopefully. What is the recipe for a happy life? Who knows? Everybody’s life is different, and everybody should take their own path. Still, somehow we all wind up in the same pile of shit, madness, confusion, misery, depression, desperation, and so on. And then we are trying to get out, realizing what has happened to us. We are stumping on each other, pushing each other out of our way, making our way out, and then falling deep down into an even bigger pile of shit. That is life. It is crazy. It is chaotic, and we have to find our way, our path, our love, our madness, and some cigarettes and wine to make it a smooth ride home.
I’ve been going crazy for a very long time now. It is not just one thing that derailed me. There are plenty. Like losing a job. Losing the only income for the family. Not being able to provide anymore while relying on governments support. Losing people around me, losing friends, losing my mind and soul, to what? There was nothing to make me happy and nothing satisfied. All those books, meditations, warm summer weather, and the birds in the sky, nothing mattered. I always knew one truth. And the truth is that nothing will remain the same. Things will change. Things will turn around, and I will be a different man living a different life, a better life. I never knew when that moment would come, but I knew it would, sooner or later. And it fucking did. I never realized how much I was sucked into the system, the same system that was eating me alive, feeding me bullshit, and sucking me in deeper and deeper each day. Now that I have been out of it for a long time, I know that I didn’t matter, the system didn’t matter, the bullshit didn’t matter, and that you could live without all that shit. I couldn’t see clearly then. But now I do.
The dark clouds obscuring my vision have vanished, and the sun came up over my head, and while it was blinding me during the daylight, I could see like never before. My senses came back, the smile on the blank face reemerged, the meaning of life returned, or at least the feeling of one came back to me to help me get out of that hole. Today is a new day. It is a better day for many reasons. The main reason is that I am still alive and kicking. The other reason is that I have something to live up to and go after, and the realization that the writer inside of me was still there. He was scared, shy, not interested, and not willing to be present when I needed him, but he was back, and so was I. Also, my closest people are still with me, which means they are real, they are true, and they are my people. It means that life is worth living for.
And just like that, there goes another cold drink and another pack of cigarettes. This is all meant to help me get the fuck out of my head, take it easy, forget, ignore, procrastinate. Was it helping? Fuck if I know. Rather distracting. But that is the only way I know how to deal with tough shit in life. Countless bottles of alcohol and cigarettes and so many dark, long nights and dark, sad thoughts about my future and miserable present, and I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel as of recently. I think I do. There isn’t much of light, but it beats darkness, as Bukowski said long ago. That is a perfect poem and a perfect line. I wish I read it sooner. I wish I had understood so many things sooner; I wouldn’t have to be in the same dark hole. I guess we all learn a few things about life a little too late after the fact. I think this is how life works for most people. Definitely for me. I have to burn myself, sometimes multiple times, to learn my lessons and clearly see what is what and who is who.
I am not a bad man, but I am a sad man. I am sad most of the time, and there is sadness in anything I see, good or bad. It is all around me. I am sad about the present because there is always too much shit to deal with and battle through. I am sad about the future because I can see none. All I can see is the darkness and nothing. I am sad about my three years old son, who was lucky to be born here in this country, but the future, just in general, is not promising anything good long-term. Somehow, as optimistic as I am, I try to stay true to myself and real and cold-headed, which leads me into darkness and sadness. Fuckness. Things just seemed so smooth and easy and fun when I was younger. Somehow, when you become an adult, and I think this is part of becoming an adult, is that you see things from a more realistic and also consider all the obstacles and dangers; you know that this world is just full of shit and madness. I don’t require much. I am not a selfish and delusional asshole; I know exactly what and how much I want in this life. The bare minimum, like a quiet and free life by the beach, worryless. I want to live my life, do my thing, and never worry about any bills to pay or economic crisis, recessions, crazy politicians, climate change, cancer, traffic, jobs, and misery of it all. I just want to live for a moment and be able to enjoy it fully. Is it that much to ask for?
The romance of the youth is a disaster plan for an adult. It takes time to realize those things. It takes time, casualties, years, broken hearts, hundreds of cigarettes, and gallons of liquor to figure it all out. There is no easy way to learn it otherwise. Nothing is meant to be easy. You and I had to face the real issues face to face and stay strong in our beliefs and push our way out of the bullshit and into a better life if we only could. Things that seemed so glorious and great at one point in time don’t seem so great all the time. Later on, many of those great things seem like a bunch of dumb ideas.
We change. Our thoughts and beliefs change. Our jobs change. Our life changes, and so do the stock market indexes and the weather and all those things. And who knows the real truth of it all? Who knows the right path anymore? I don’t. Maybe it is better not to know. Maybe living in constant expectation of a surprise or a disaster is the way to go. That is a good question to ask and look for an answer years from now. Time will tell. Time never sleeps, never rests, and doesn’t give a shit about you and me and our problems and issues. It always keeps moving. We should always keep moving. Movement is life. Life requires some basic movement. It’s that simple.
Every road leads somewhere, Even if you are going with no directions. There will be stops, and turns, and exits, But the road always goes on As long as you are. You should follow your destination. Even if you don’t have one Something will come along and You will see the signs. You will feel them, You will see the light eventually. There is a long road ahead of you As you barely started this trip On this never-ending highway. Life is always rough. It should be. This is how you grow. This is how you learn. This is how you develop. This is how you move forward. This is what will keep you going. This is what will make you go Following the road, Following the path, And eventually finding yours. There will be traffic on your way, Exits, bridges, and dead ends. But you will have to find your way out. You might get lost sometimes, But if you keep searching You will find and reach your destination. You will find where you belong in this life.
The sun is up and shinning, It is shinning in your face Making you feel happy, helping you see better. It could also blind you, too, preventing you from seeing Your path clearly. You always got to keep moving forward. Until you can Until there is no life in you left, no energy And passion for something. Even if you don’t know what it is Things eventually will turn around. Things will come about. Solutions will present themselves eventually. You just got to keep on moving, keep going, Keep following your path, Keep following your road to the unknown. Go straight ahead and never look back. The past is behind you. The past will not help you build your present. The past will not help you build your future. You are building your future today, right now. For a better tomorrow, Or worst, depending on what you do. You just got to keep going, Keep going. There will be many destinations on your way. There will be many obstacles in your way. You have to be mindful. You have to be careful. Enjoy the ride.
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.
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.
The watch is ticking on my wrist I can see the handles move in circles And I can hear the tiny gears And springs in motion. They move the time, They change my life, The watch remains the same.
The watch is ticking on my wrist But when it stops, I feel relieved. It feels like I’ve captured the moment I own it. It is all mine. The watch might stop as Life might stop But time never stops And the watch is always the same, The same twenty-four hours, The same markers for twelve, three, six, and nine.
The watch is ticking on my wrist I can hear it in the quiet room. It will stop when my heart stops Beating, living, exhausted from pumping The blood. One day it will be the end for me The end to all of us, But there will be somebody To wind that watch of life To make it tick again, To make the movement go, As time goes on, As life goes on. Time never stops It always moves.
Life? What is life? What is there about it? Why is it always have to go the wrong way? Why, every so often, does life take you to some weird fucking places and knocks you down? Where the fuck am I going? And all of us? You, me, and everybody? It is bizarre to figure out your own life. You only learn this as you go along the way and stumble and fall, down deep into the shit of it all. It always has been this way. I always thought that when I grew up and reached my current age, I would know all the tricks and have all the answers. How naive of me was that? The longer I live, the more questions and doubts I have and the more confused and puzzled I become. It is not easy to make the right decision or any fucking decision because now, as an adult, there are no small decisions. Everything has consequences, and I have to take full responsibility. Not because I have to, I could surely fuck around, but because it is the right thing to do, and this is what grown men do. They take responsibility for all their actions and decisions and fight every day to ensure that they do all they can today to make their lives better tomorrow.
I am no longer the young and careless lad I once was. I am not an old fuck either. But these are the times right now when I establish myself as a real man, my character and my personality and my lifestyle, to help me get through this fucking crazy life. I know I’ve made many bad decisions, and many things could be different today. I am not even complaining about anything I’ve done. I love my life the way it is, and knowing how others struggle everywhere in the world, I feel so fucking fortunate. And honestly, even if I fucked up a few times here and there, I wouldn’t mind it too much because I wouldn’t be the person I am today. This is all about learning that shit as you go and keep moving forward. One should never stop moving forward unless you’re not breathing anymore. That’s the only allowed permanent stop. All other times, you have no excuses. Whether you want it or not, you have to get out there and fight every day and be who you are, become a better version of yourself, and find your true passion or your calling or whatever it is you are looking for.
I remember waiting when I was younger. I remember that there always has been a lot of waiting involved all the time. Waiting until I finish high school, finish college, or university, waiting for the job, waiting for the pay, waiting to reach a certain age, a particular moment, waiting for my opportunity. There is still a lot of waiting involved today, but it is called work in progress. I am kind of waiting for a better life, easy living, more fun, less pain, and less struggle, but also I am buried in my life with my daily chores and responsibilities. I know that just by waiting, I will not achieve shit. I have to do something about it. I have to work hard. I have to work smart. I have to keep my eyes open and not miss the opportunity coming my way, sideways, or wherever direction that bitch is coming from. I have to be ready. I have to be prepared for anything.
One never knows what life will put you through until it does. One never knows what tomorrow will bring. So, the game is to be ready for anything and be strong whatever comes your way. We are all here temporarily, people you know today, your friends, relatives, co-workers, and neighbors. One day you might wake up to a phone call about somebody’s death. Somebody you wouldn’t even question living for a long time might pass away. Are you ready for this? No. Nobody is. I don’t care who you are and how tough you are. Life will keep throwing punches and curve balls at you all the fucking time, and you have to be strong enough to manage all that shit. There are battles at war, and also, there are battles in peace. The winner might not take everything, but the winner better be you. Otherwise, there comes another defeat, misery, depression, wasted years of life, and so many wasted lives. People can be kind or seem kind at first. You always find out too late about all the pitfalls and shit that come from others. Sometimes it even feels like you have nobody to lean on, nobody to have your back. You are here, all alone, on your own, with all the bullshit to deal with. Modern society is strange these days, super sensitive and very easily manipulated. You could be too. You have to be mindful and aware and have your eyes and ears open all the time.
I often sit in total despair and wonder, how could shit get more brutal than this? And guess what? Next time around, sure as fuck, it becomes next-level insane. I am learning to become kind of immune to that. I never expect things and life to go easy and smooth. I know it never will be. But I also know that I have to be stronger to stand against it, whatever it is. Something does hurt you a lot. I mean, some things will damage you profoundly and permanently, and you might stay this way for a very long time. Even if you recover, you must never forget your past struggles. They will make you tougher. They will make you smarter. They will make you more resilient. “To be alive at all is to have scars” – an excellent quote from John Steinback. That is what I am talking about. This is another way of saying, “What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.” However, as cliche, as it might sound, it is true as anything.
We all grow up. We all get older with time. We age differently and interestingly, and that is the fact. We get fucking old. All of us. Even if you have that plastic surgery, everyone, including you, knows you’re fucking old. With age, there comes wisdom. Some get it more and some less. I am not judging. The more I get older, the more stupid I think I become but also, the more I learn and see that I know nothing. There is just so much shit to learn and discover, so many questions, and even more questions without answers. We try to answer them all, but often we fail. It is okay to fail. It is not okay to give up trying. Plastic surgery won’t give you all the answers, either. It won’t give you any wisdom except a good understanding that eventually, we fail to be young and beautiful and full of energy as we once were back in our innocent and glorious youth. The thing is to keep up the good fight, whatever it means to you. To be as good as you can be today and try for the same tomorrow. It is hard. Nobody said it would be easy. But, if you want to get and achieve something in this life, you have to do it.
Love is there also for us. Love does not always have big boobs or a nice, round big ass. Love is a feeling. Love is the air. Love is an ocean. Love is the motivation, and love should be in our lives to help us get through everything. Many people fail at love or love somebody they shouldn’t. You can’t always tell your heart what to do, but you can make the right decision. There is always the right person somewhere out there for all of us. I’ve been fortunate to have found my love. She is always near and dear to me, my heart, and my soul. There is no price tag or expiration date. There should not be one, to begin with. Things do happen, and it might seem like the love has evaporated. It might be gone, for that matter, but also, it could be the wrong love. The wrong choice you’ve made somewhere along the way, and as time went by, it became more apparent. It is sad but true. I don’t know how to find the right one. I guess time will tell. I think you have to make a move and use the proper judgment, and then you’ll see if you were right or not.
Life wouldn’t be interesting if it wouldn’t fuck with us from time to time. That’s life. I don’t think one can be fully ready for all shitstorms that could come your way. One doesn’t know what to expect the next minute, which makes it all very unpredictable and very mysterious, in a way. I guess this fight never stops. It’s always on as long as you live, as long as you breathe, and if you want to take another breath, you should fight for it. So, it just makes perfect sense to sit back and enjoy life and every little moment. One day it is rough; another is a blast. So, what the fuck?
I do want to go back. I want to return to my emotional and spiritual home, the warm beach in South West Florida. I thought about it recently. I reminisced about the good old days and the time when my mind and soul were in total peace and harmony. There was no anxiety, depression, stress, or any fucking worry whatsoever. There is something in that sunshine that makes you feel more alive. The minute you get out of the car or a plane and look around and look up, you feel free and happy. There is no better way to get all the fucking vitamin D you can get out there. That is a secret ingredient to happiness. It does make me happy. It does make me genuinely happy like nothing else in the world. That climate is just perfect. It’s warm and consistent, and there are no significant ups and downs and fucking sideways with temperatures or anything else. Yes, it rains and storms like fucking hell at certain times, but most of the time, it’s fucking perfect. It is 85 on average every day. It could be plus or minus two, three, or four degrees. Who gives a shit? It’s still great. It makes one want to live and love this life.
The ocean. The ocean is magnificent by its nature, and it heals. It heals all the wounds that we get from the day-to-day bullshit. You know what heaven feels like when you sit on the beach watching waves, lying in the sand, or swimming in the warm ocean water. I loved to wake up early and drive to the beach for my morning runs. I ran barefoot slowly, listening to some music while still hearing the ocean and the birds. I ran with the early morning sun in my face, the beach to my side, and my bare feet feeling the wet sand on the shore like nothing else. It felt so liberating. It felt like freedom. It was not physical exercise for me. It was a joy and pure mental and spiritual joy. When my day started like that every morning, there was nothing that could upset me anymore or have any fucking negative impact on me whatsoever. I just didn’t give a fuck. I was in heaven. I knew I had it better than most. I was devouring every second of my time there on the beach every time, and I started to appreciate little moments like that more. I began to see life from a new perspective. I knew that there was a reason why I was alive and why I should love this life. I knew that I was so fucking fortunate to be there. I was so grateful for my life, what I have, and the people around me.
Sunsets. Oh, these magnificent sunsets can cure cancer, and they are perfect each time you see one. I cannot tell you how happy I have been to witness all the sunsets I did, how many thoughts ran through my mind, how much joy I had, and how much more alive I felt. There is something about sunsets that always intrigues me and makes me want to watch them more and more and more, and there are never enough sunsets. On the one hand, I could witness how the perfect day ended, how every day ended. How yet another day of my life ended but wasn’t wasted. That is the key to watching sunsets. You see them, and you realize that they will happen with or without you, and the day will become the night, the night will become a day, and life will move on, and so should we. There is the right time to start and the right time to finish. There is this time in the day to let go of all the shit that happened before and get ready for a new beginning.
On the other hand, it makes you think and wonder how insignificant we are and how much natural beauty there is in this world, and it is there for you every fucking evening for free. It is a shame that so many people take these great events for granted and ignore them or miss them even when they really can, take twenty minutes off their evening and see that magnificent and perfect scenery. I always took my time to be there, watch yet another sunset, say goodbye to the past, and welcome new and better life.
There is enough suffering and bullshit in life, but there are also many really great things here. If you focus on the wrong things, that’s what you’ll be getting, a shitty fucking, miserable life. If you choose to seek out great things, you will be happy. Truly happy as people can be. You are what you think you are. Choose to be somebody better than that person you were yesterday and see how things will start to change. There might not be a perfect life in your daily existence. There might not be an ideal woman next to you. There might not be a beach where you live, but it doesn’t mean these things do not exist and that, if you want and seek them out, you’ll be in a better place with everything you need that makes you happy. And honestly, there isn’t much the man needs to be truly happy. It is always the little things.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Most people are assholes, and you will have to deal with them all your life. That’s it, just remember that.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Enjoy a good whiskey or bourbon with ice like a real man. What can be better than that?
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.
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.
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.
Politics is shit. Always has been and always will be. There is nobody to trust and nobody to rely on.
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.
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.
We all, at some point, grow up and go on with and into our lives. Nobody is an exception. At one point, we are newborn babies, and we know nothing, and we cannot do anything but find and suck on our mother’s tit. Then we grow up and develop as a person and learn the language and how to talk. We sound funny and cute early on, then with time, we master communication skills, behavior, and ethics, and we become a part of society. I never thought about this too much until I became a parent myself. I look at that kid, and I see a younger version of myself, and I often remember what my parents used to do and, what they told me, how they raised me. I looked at them, and I thought they were adults; they knew everything, could do anything, and knew how to handle any problem. Now, at this point in my life, I’ve realized that they didn’t, and neither do I. I am learning as I go to be a parent. I am trying to be a great father, and knowing my upbringing; I want to make some improvements for my child. Like any other parent out there, I want a better childhood for my children, and I want them to have a better life than I had. I don’t know how it will play out long-term, but I hope for the best. As much as you try as a parent to bring up a child and raise a great person, I know that there is only so much parents can do. There is also life outside the sweet home that is unpredictable and unfair in many cases. My son will be growing up with other children. He will have caretakers at the kinder garden, teachers at the school, friends outside school, and the family circle, and they will be part of his life as his parents. The fear of any parent is to let our child go into this mean, unfair, rough, and crazy world we’re living in and watch them struggle, knowing of all the dangers out there that the little young mind is unaware of yet.
My son was born in September of 2019. Oh, it’s been just recently, and yet it seems so far away now. That was the last year when life was still normal. It was the last time the world has been as I remember it my whole life. Six months later, the world entered the global pandemic, and everything went to shit. Everyone’s lives changed during the pandemic, but the best thing for me was that I got to stay home with my family and my newborn child and be close to them all the time. I was lucky to get a great chance to watch him grow up, see him becoming a person, make his first steps, say his first word, and all other great things that came along. We decided we would not be sending him to childcare because everyone was freaking out about the virus. So we all had some great family quality time from his birth. He’s been home his first two years and nine months with his mother manly while his father was going to work and providing. There were great times. There were challenging moments, of course, but for the most part, we all were home, safe, and together under one roof. That’s what matters the most, staying together as a family. We all knew that the day would come, and we would have to send him to daycare, school, college, and his independent adult life. The only thought about sending my son to daycare scared us. Deep in my heart, I felt like I was giving up on my child. It felt unfair. I never wanted to do it. I wished he could stay home forever. Thinking about that moment, he would be away for a day felt strange and painful. My heart was tearing apart, and I felt the pressure in my chest. We both did. This is the feeling you get to go through when you love your child.
This child, in his two years of life, has lived through so much already: covid, recession, seasonal allergy, viruses, economy collapse, elections from Trump to Biden, housing boom, four round trip airplane travels, presidential elections, black lives movement, country division, his dead’s first self-published book, dad changing jobs, the war in Ukraine, national gasoline prices at an all-time high, what the fuck else am I missing here? There were some great moments in his little life as well. He’s got recently a newly born cousin-sister, we bought a house and moved out of our parent’s place, he’s been to Florida four times, he’s seen many exotic fishes and animals in zoos, aquariums and in the nature, survived covid without even knowing he’s got it, painlessly, he’s a bright, good-looking kid with the most loving parents in the world. Why am I bringing all of this up? This should explain how well-oiled and a tight family we are and how much time we love to spend together. We never get bored of one another and love each other dearly. When you have a family like that, you don’t give two fucks about the world outside, even if everything around is falling apart. Together we all always stand strong. We hate to separate, even for half a day or a few hours. Sometimes my wife and I go shopping or out for dinner, and it feels strange to be without the little one after a while. Shortly after living in the house, we both start missing our son. This is the kind of relationship we have going on here. It is painful to stay apart, and it is an abundance of activities, noise, and fun when we are all in one room. I am beyond fortunate to have a family like this.
When I was growing up, my family wasn’t the best but wasn’t the worst either. It is hard to criticize my parent now when I am a grown man with a child of my own and having the same issues my parents went through when they were younger. I remember my upbringing pretty well, especially when my younger brother was born. My parents grew up in a different country, a different world. I mean, it has been a different universe back then. Post-Societ-Union Ukraine wasn’t the top destination for most people, and the economic and social environment wasn’t what you would call promising. They both had to work. They both worked hard to make some money to provide for us, two boys, two crazy fucking boys who would beat the shit out of each other for no reason except that we were living under one roof. My parents bought a house, something that looked like a condo; we had a garage and a car. Not a fancy car, but it was brand-fucking-new when they bought it, and it was one of those classic Russian-made cars that half of the country was cruising around. There was no internet, gadgets, computers, home deliveries, yoga studios, or therapy practices. People had to get around however they could. People had to eat their own shit to survive. People had to be assholes to one another because somebody would fuck you over if you were too kind. And trust me, you never want to be fucked over in that country in those days or ever. My parents never knew about a healthy lifestyle, traveling, meditations, couples therapy, yoga, or gym workouts. They had to carry all that madness inside of them. It wasn’t even a norm to express yourself openly like it is popular to do today. And then, once the patience was running out, the alcohol came into the mix, the fighting, the cursing, the screams, and long nights when I was in bed wondering how in the fuck this would end?
My parents weren’t horrible parents or bad people. We had all the necessities, everything a child might need to grow up healthy and not a spoiled brat. We always had decent clothes, a lovely clean house, plenty to eat, a decent amount of toys, and proper discipline. We knew when we should be quiet and when it was better to hide away or calm down and stop doing stupid things. Otherwise, my father’s temper would not last long before he’d start beating the shit out of us. My mother was beating him and driving him mad. In return, he would transition all his anger at us, primarily myself, just because I was older. So, I know what it is like to be a responsible person from an early age because no matter what if my father wasn’t in the mood, I’d catch the fucking swing. Sometimes beatings were so hard that I often thought if he ever was concerned that I could get seriously damaged? I thought, how in the fuck am I going to survive this beating? What was my fault in his anger management or mismanagement towards the world and myself? One thing I learned early on in my life was the following. I knew that if I ever had any children, I would never raise them as my parents raised me. I’d rather not have any children at all than have them and have them suffering as I did through all of the bullshit and fury between two completely opposite and not compatible in any fucking way individuals.
Today, looking back at my own life, I cannot complain. Others had it much worst than I. What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger. I believe it did. I survived. I grew up a decent human being. I know the wrong from right, and I know what kind of parent I will never be for my children. I know what kind of family I always wanted growing up, and I am doing my best right now to raise my family in the best possible way. I am a father myself and have great relationships with both parents. They have no relationships, but I stay close to both of them, and we see each other at least every week. They love their grandson, and I genuinely believe that that little child didn’t just change me into a better version of me but also changed them, the old dinosaurs, which I thought would never change. I guess people do mellow out with age, and now watching them laugh and smile watching the little one, I can see the pure love and happiness in their eyes I wish I could remember them showing to me when I was two years old. I do understand their strict position in raising my brother and myself. I know how important it is to keep your offspring in check and ensure they know what’s good and bad and how they should act.
With all that said, I want to continue with my point of raising children and letting them go into their own life. The world we are living in isn’t the best, safest place to be. Honestly, it wasn’t the best and safest place when I was growing up, and, as it seems, nothing fucking changed in the last thirty-five years. We all have to make it somehow. We must ensure our children are safe, fed, and secure and have everything they need. It is a complicated and critical job to be a parent. It is even harder to be a great parent. We are all people, and we all have our flaws. We all must deal with emotions, jobs, family, health, economics, etc. A lot of times, that socioeconomic pressure is just too much to carry around with you, and you start bending, getting angry, anxious, and depressed.
On the one hand, we are lucky to live in a day and age where it is very easy to get the products and services you need with a few clicks on your phone. It is relatively easy to make money, and you can achieve anything you want if you are a driven individual. We have all kinds of meditation apps, gyms at every corner, yoga studios, healthy organic food everywhere and everything is pretty much extensible to anyone everywhere. This makes the burden my parents went through so much easier. If I had been raised in America, our lives would be much better and more manageable, and my parents would still be together. People don’t need much to be happy. People think they need a lot, but it isn’t much after all. Somehow life gets complicated, and people go crazy, trying to live up to some standards, making all the money in the world, and hustling and sacrificing their precious time and health for nothing. There are too many sacrifices people make for fucking stupid possessions, for a fucking status, better neighborhood, better newer car, larger house with more useless shit if that house. This constant dissatisfaction with what you have and never have enough is fucking driving people insane; it breaks families apart and brings a lot of anger, sadness, and depression. Who needs all that shit? I’d rather stay poor all my life, but I want to make sure I am close with my family, and we are all as one, and we are all healthy and happy and love each other.
It was a typical weekend day, and my wife, my two-year-old son, and I went to a farm nearby to do strawberry picking. This place brings me back to my childhood, growing up in the country, growing ourselves fruits, berries, and vegetables. Many families with children come over to a farm playground where many parents like us bring their children to pick the strawberries, hang outside, play with other children, and have a great family quality time. There is a barn with a stage and a local band playing classic rock tribute songs. There is a fast-food joint making the best cheeseburgers and organic real-potatoes fries. There is a bar serving adult beverages and an ice cream place with some great homemade ice cream. There is a lot of fun and games and always something to do for the whole family.
My son is a bit shy. He’s shier than most kids are, and he’s careful amongst others, but he’s a child, a two-year-old. After picking some strawberries, we ate local fast food, followed by some ice cream. My son was running around, discovering the new place, bumping into people and other kids. Then he saw the playground. He looked at it and smiled with the most innocent smile. He looked at me and said he wanted to go there. He spends most of his time at home under his mother’s supervision while I work. He doesn’t have many friends and is not often when playing with other kids. He’s too domesticated and lived his first two years and eight months in a pretty safe and protected home environment. We went up there to the playground, and he climbed onto the slider, and there were a bunch of other kids. There were way too many kids for that reasonably small place, and everyone ran around chaotically and maniacally like a bunch of little ants. They all wanted to play, go down the slider, and do some climbing and jumping. They bumped into each other and pushed each other not maliciously, just mindlessly like children always do. My son was one of the youngest there, and he was being cautious as he usually is. He climbed up the stairs slowly, then over the wooden block, and climbed onto the little deck. There was a tube that kids would crawl into, come back, and go inside again. My son did the same. He smiled, looking around, watching other kids do things, and he tried to follow them as I was watching him from the ground.
At one moment, I lost sight of him. I looked around and couldn’t find him. I walked around and shouted his name as I couldn’t see him up there. Then he came up and just stood there smiling. The other kids were running around, pushing through, screaming, and shouting. He stood there quietly, and I called his name again. He couldn’t hear me, but I got relieved that at least I could see him now, and he was fine. He’s having his fun with other kids. He stood there watching others, turned around, and leaned onto the wooded fence, looking down. He did not see me, and I was closely watching him and getting worried more and more about him not getting pushed over by other kids. I felt like a ghost watching him from the side. He probably wasn’t even thinking about me at the moment. It was his life, and he was enjoying it among other kids. I felt something strange then. I felt the feeling of losing him. I feared that if something happened, I could be there and could not help him. I know he needs my support, I know he needs my help, and also, he’s out there on his own, living his life. I felt that this is what happens in life when your children grow up and become independent, and they go on in their lives. My son stood there smiling and curiously watching everything around him as my heart was bleeding because I just wanted to snatch him out of there and hug and never let him out into this chaotic and manic world of ours.
“The Catcher in the Rye” and Holden’s philosophy on children entering adult life came to my mind. It all made perfect sense to me there. I felt like Holden, trying to catch my child from jumping into adulthood or his little independent life without me. I wanted to protect him from the outside world. I want him to grow up a great, intelligent, respectful person, which will happen someday. But now, I only wanted to keep my child close to me and have full control and provide complete protection over him. I realized that this is what “letting your child into the world” actually feels like. He was up there, not realizing that I was watching. He probably even forgot that his father was nearby. He was living these moments on his own, at his discretion. I felt it all in my heart. I remembered how my father was furious at me for going out and doing things with my friends when I was a child. He was always so overprotective that he eventually became a tyrant in my childhood. I wasn’t allowed to do anything because everything was some sort of danger to me. I felt his pain in my young father’s chest watching my son standing there alone with no support from me.
I know he will grow up eventually and become an adult, a real man, and a father someday. But also, he will always be my child, my son, and always will be his father. Today he is two and change, and his life is all fun and games. His parents do their best to provide and support him and ensure he gets the best childhood possible. At one point, he’ll mature and this fun will turn to anxiety, and the games will become survival. I have time before that to prepare him for life and all the ins and outs. I will not always be there all the time. I will not always be near or available, and he might not even let me know about everything that is going on in his life. I will be then like I have been at the playground, just another observer, a father ghost. I would just be looking out and hoping for the best while life will decide what turn to make and what challenge to bring up for him. I will be useless and helpless, and that thought is tearing my heart. I cannot keep him as this innocent little boy who is always protected and has his parents next to him twenty-four-seven.
We all have to grow up, and we all have to deal with life. Not all of us get a fair share, and not all of us will be able to enjoy the life ahead of us entirely. But we all have to strive for a better life. We all, as adults, have to be able to set our children up for a better childhood and better life than we once had. Times are changing but usually not for the best. There are more and more issues and threats, and the future is always unpredictable and mysterious. Somehow we all have to deal with it. At some point, we all have to let our children go on and start their own life. There will be a lot of unpredictable and hopefully more fortunate moments in their lives, but they have to take that ownership of their own lives and live it. My son will start kindergarten soon, the first step into his independent life without parents nearby. He will have to make it on his own. He will have to grow up, become smarter, stronger, and more independent. I believe that one day he will become a great father and have the same worries I have for him today. Until then and always, I will be his loving father, my wife will be his loving mother, and we will never stop worrying about him because we live our lives for him, and we live him more than life itself. Parents will get it. They know how it feels.
I walked toward the sunset I did not want to wait until it came to me. It was up there shining in my face While going down, Setting behind the horizon Like it usually does. The ocean roamed with waves coming back and forth It wasn’t calm, but it made my heart at peace. I’m peaceful here. I’ve arrived To the place, I can call home. I belong here. I am happy here. It is all mine, all that ocean, And all that sand and sun up there in the sky, Shining in my face, hiding behind the clouds, Hiding behind the horizon Shining in my face its last To let me know the day is over, And tomorrow will be another one. And nothing matters anymore before or after. I am here, and I’m alive.
Love comes in and out suddenly It helps you live and helps you suffer It can punch you in the face. Love means holding hands together Love means to kiss Love means to smile, to hug, Love means watching each other grow old. Love means the wrinkles on your face And body changes, weather changes Everything changes. Love justifies it all. Love saves, love scars. Love is like the ocean, It could be endless And it can dry out. Love is like a highway It can last a while or end shortly. It’s a trip. It’s a trip that you take As long you move, loves moves. Love moves life. It can screw with your head It can screw with your life. Love can screw your head, your soul And your mind. You cannot live without it And sometimes it will make life more difficult with love. Love means loving somebody unconditionally Without receiving love back. It’s the hardest thing. It’s the hardest thing. Love is like a flower in the sand. It can grow through everything It can survive, but it might need some water in it. It needs passion, it needs the air, And it needs the purpose. What is the purpose of love? It’s your own thing. It is whatever makes you drive. It is what makes you take the highway. Jump through all the hoops, suffer, sacrifice, In the name of love. Love is lungs full of air, Love is a forest full of trees, Love is everything and nothing. You can keep love, you can hide it, You can avoid it, but it will always show up In your heart, in your face, in your smile, in your hair, In your teeth, in your bones. It can bite you, and it can bite others. Love has no limits. It can go on and on, rooflessly and endlessly, It can throw people off. It can mess with your dailiness, busyness, problemness, But it also can cure all of it. It all depends. Just like everything else in life, It all depends. Love is a free bird in the sky, Love is blue sky and ocean, and all the palms On the beach, All the cars on the highway, And all the trees up in the mountains. Love is old age, Love is young age, Love is sunset and sunrise. Love is a dark room with windows closed. Love is an empty closet. Love is running water in a shower. Love is a bed in the bedroom. Love is sex. Love is moving. Love helps us to leave, Love is here to stay. We all need a little bit of love For each of us in our lives. It’s easier this way, It’s better this way. It’s the best way out And the best way in.
It’s ok to be alone and not to ask questions. Sometimes the most important Things are left unspoken. We all know what it is, but we don’t say it aloud. People are like islands; they all have so much in common But they are much different on the inside And there is all this water between them That it takes a boat to go from one place to the other. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to arrive Where you wanted. And it takes forever to reach somebody’s mind or heart So distant and so foreign and yet so familiar.
People are at their best when they are alone, Then they put on the mask and walk outside Hiding their souls and pretending not to be themselves anymore. It is a hard game to play, and rules change all the time. We don’t create the rules. Somebody else does. We just follow. We don’t question. We keep it all inside unanswered and just Like the bird locked up in the cage, beating up against the walls Trying to get out, but it’s not possible unless Somebody let it happen. The sky is so close but so far away at the same time and We all can see it, but we cannot touch it.
We can only come closer to it in our dreams. Dream little people, dream, while the night sleeps While the day’s done, until the next time, Until the next day, when you will hopefully See the daylight again. You will put your mask on and Go out there into the world of mystery and questions, And into the unspoken thoughts and dreams, Trying to survive again, trying to reach the sky, While drowning in the waters of everyday life, More and more, deeper and deeper Until there is nothing else to do But to get to the bottom at peace With peace of your mind.
As another year comes to its natural conclusion, I sit and think about it for a while. Many things were going on this year that I wanted to analyze and reflect on. This year was not the best or most remarkable, even though many great things did happen, and overall it has been an improvement to the year prior. I think nothing will and could ever compare to 2020. That’s how fucked up that year has been for me and for all of us. 2021 has been a little bit better. In many ways, similar to 2020, not much improvement, although one could feel a bit of a relief. Something that was so mysteriously dangerous and everyone was holding on to just got out of the way. We all took a long deep breath and moved on in our lives. I think this is how 2021 will go down in history. It was time to move on. I am so fucking happy I moved on.
I am always fascinated by how fast a year flew by, and usually, that would make me a bit nostalgic and sad. This doesn’t happen anymore because these were some crazy two fucking years, and I cannot wish more to have them behind my back and fucking forgotten, thrown out of my life and mind. Fuck these crazy times. I am very hopeful for the future days to come. I do hope for a much better and prosperous future. I am the fucking future. I will make it all work starting right fucking now and onward. This is how it should be. Each of us has to own it, take our lives into our hands, and make shit happen. Nobody else would do that for you or me. It is all in our fucking hands.
I remember how desperately I’ve been waiting for the end of 2020. That one was a motherfucker of the year and such a turning point in, I believe, everyone’s lives. How many of us will never be the same after all that crazy shit? I think all of us have changed our life’s dimensions and priorities since 2020. I don’t know how much longer we all will be in this pandemic and how much longer we will be getting forced into vaccinations, masks, limited capacities, shortages, and all that other shit. One thing I know for sure, we all have to move the fuck on. We all have to own our lives. We all had to improve our lives, relationships with one another, and our health because otherwise, there is no movement forward. I made my choices, I made up my mind, I know what the fuck is what the fuck. I also see that many people are still living in this never-ending wait, for the directions, waiting to be told, waiting not to die from the virus, waiting for another fucking shot. The shot we all should be taking is our own shot at this life, not some fucking half-backed chemicals that might as well fuck up your health even more. And of course, even the fucking science doesn’t know the long-term effects and consequences or what else will the new variant bring on.
Reflecting on this year of God 2021, I think it’s been a rough one, but overall not too bad. I did spend too much time waiting on something to happen, and everything seemed to be a drag. I’ve been trying to take ownership and make things move around but with little success. Some fucking things just take their time. I have finally left the big Corporate America world, which was a very long-time coming and fucking finally came to fruition. Around February, I realized that I could not make things work and that there was no return from that fucking hellhole. The only option was to run as far away as I could. And I did. It took almost six months to run away and find a new job. There was so much fucking effort invested into this fucking job search that I almost gave up. I thought the month of searching would be enough at first. Then one month went by, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth. How wrong was I? And then, all of a sudden, somebody reached out to me from the deep past and offered me a job. I considered the opportunity, and I finally got the new gig. I got all that I’ve been ever asking for, and I finally was able to say good buy to all that corporate bullshit. Searching for the job took away all the time I wanted to spend on writing, fitness, family, sleep, and the rest of life-important things. It only made everything more complicated and more painful.
We wanted to move to Florida this passing year as well, unsuccessfully. We started house hunting early in the year, and we were very close at times of getting one. It didn’t happen until late September, and I think for all the right reasons. Fortunately, we’ve got our new place right here in the Philadelphia suburbs. We did spend an entire month of May in Florida renting, and it was the highlight of the year. That really felt very much like healing, very rewarding, relaxing, and just fucking awesome. I am considering going there next year as well. There are some things to consider prior but fuck the things. My life, my family’s life, and our well-being are top priorities against everything else. Everything else can go to fucking hell as far as I am concerned. There is always something in our way preventing us from going after our goals. Some fucking last-minute, out-of-the-blue fucking emergency that will fuck up the big plan. Here is where we need to be laser-focused and cut that bullshit right out. If you know what you want, go and get what you want. There is no need for waiting, crying, trying, or asking somebody for something. Just fucking do it, as Nike said.
This year I’ve lost my dear lifelong friend. It is hard to write about your best friend who is no longer here. There has been so much between us that we went through together that it will take a novel-sized book to capture everything. I don’t know if the words I am choosing are the right words, and indeed, they are not enough to capture the loss and the sadness. I have a ton of memories of him that I will always treasure, as well as all the things we did together. He’s been in poor health the last three years of his life since the diagnosis, and he’s been a true fucking fighter, fighting this thing to the end, until his last minute. Unfortunately, his illness was stronger than him. Unfortunately, all these other things got in a way, impacted him and his health one way or another, and in the end, he was gone. There was so much of him in my life, and now there is just emptiness. It is very unusual to realize that and confirm this new reality. How will this life go without a person who’s been so close to me all these years? We went through so much shit together. We have been together since the day we’ve met. Life did not prepare me for this, but this is something that, when it happens, leaves you with no choice. It leaves you broken up there, hanging confused and shocked, wondering what the fuck just happened. Rest in peace, my dear friend. I love you, I miss you, I will never forget you. As Warren Zevon sang, “I’ll keep you in my heart for a while,” and forever. Take care now. I hope you’ve found your peace up there in heaven. May your soul be comfortable for once and until we see each other again.
Job is something I seem to always struggle with. It is either the job search is challenging and complex, takes too much time, and there are no opportunities, or, when I finally lent a job, I feel like I am not in the right mindset to deal with it and I am thinking about the escape. And on the other hand, getting along with a bunch of strangers at work and pretending that you like them all and enjoy their company even if you don’t care, and even if they treat you like shit, is a full-time job on its own. Sometimes it feels like there are no great jobs for me or at all. It seems like everywhere I go, I own somebody something. That owning is what fucking drives me crazy. The minute I start feeling all those eyes on me watching, waiting, wanting me to jump out of my skin, wanting me to break, and all these fucking never-ending expectations and constant not enough’s are killers for anyone’s soul, not just mine. My soul is small and humble, and it doesn’t need much comfort or requires anything unusual. It is in a much better place when all the necessities are covered and paid for, but there the problems begin. I am a free spirit, and I like to think I am independent, and I like to think I have a don’t-give-a-fuck attitude, but that only goes for so long. At the end of the day, I love to have my bills paid on time and have certain comfort in my life, certain financial freedom, certain life qualities that I think a normal human being who works hard deserves to have and should be enjoyed effortlessly. I don’t like to count every single fucking penny. I don’t like to shop for savings and discounts, and I don’t give a fuck about savings and overthinking my retirement budget. I want what I want and when I do want that, and I am getting it right there and then. Not because I am a spoiled lunatic, but because this approach, in my opinion, takes away the pain of letting go of the hard-earned money and the stress that comes along with not having enough or spending your last dollar. I also don’t like to spend too much time worrying about stupid shit. I’d rather pay more and have nothing to worry about. Life is short. I wonder, when we die, what will be the biggest regret, our retirement budget, or all the missed opportunities in this life?
This year will mark the fifth year since I’ve seriously decided to write. Back in 2016, after reading Charles Bukowski’s poetry for the first time, I felt something that I had never felt before. There was this crazy urge to write, create, be a poet, and a writer. Everything I observed around me, every thought that entered my mind, I was trying to somehow put on the paper in the poem form. I remember that fire burning inside of me. I have never felt anything like that before or after. Bukowski’s poetry initially seemed too simple. I felt like even I could do that. I can write my thoughts as Bukowski did. This is why he was a genius. This is why he has inspired so many and keeps inspiring new writers today.
It wasn’t all that simple when I tried to write something myself, but at least I tried, and I’ve got something. It was the beginning of everything for me. My poetry wasn’t good, and there was no prose early on at all. Somehow, I wrote over two hundred poems in some three-plus years and self-publish that in 2020. Since that time, I haven’t published anything else. Last year, I finished writing a novel which I started writing back in 2018. This year I was planning to final edit it and start looking for representation as I was planning to have it all done professionally and officially.
The editing process stalled early in the first half of the year, and I could never finish it. There was always something in a way. Mostly my job or my new job search, which took away too much of my fucking time. I do feel like shit to yet again put my writing career on the back burner for the sake of comfortable and worry-less living. Looking back at it now, I don’t think it was all that comfortable and worry-less as I thought. Life is full of fucking surprises and challenges, and it keeps to fuck me up at every corner with every bit of opportunity it has to cut me off. I know this and expect this to happen, but this will take my focus away from my writing and my true passion. Am I disappointed? Yes, I am a little. I feel that this unfinished business is hanging over me. I feel like I didn’t hold the promise I’ve made to myself to finish that novel this year. But, with some challenges, I was able to make many improvements in my life and career, and hopefully, that will help me move forward and spend more time on my writing. I do hope to finish that fucking novel this upcoming new year and hopefully find somebody to push this to big guys in publishing to have a traditional publishing release. It would be great. At least it seems like it. There is a lot of shit I will have to go through as well, but I’ll deal with it when I get there. For now, I have a lot of work to do, and I need to have my priorities straight and set my mind on them.
It is not so cold and snowless on this Christmas Eve of 2021. It is dark and quiet outside, and nothing is happening in the suburbs besides Santa, who has a lot of work to do tonight. All kids are asleep, waiting for tomorrow’s morning to come faster so they can finally see their gifts. My wife and son are upstairs sleeping, and I am here downstairs, drinking great Irish whiskey, listening to a great Irish guitar player Rory Gallagher on vinyl, eating pistachios ice cream, and typing this final blog post for the year. Life is not all that bad. It can be bitchy at times, though. Everything that I have now, today, is not luck. I know that. I can recall too many sleepless nights and never-ending workdays and never-ending struggles and sufferings. I survived all that, and somehow I am still here. I am in a much better place and space and keep moving forward. Just like Rocky, I keep punching and moving forward. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow or after tomorrow or the next month, next year. It doesn’t bother me anymore. I have learned the hard way to survive, and I will survive no matter what happens. I will break the fuck free and breakthrough all that bullshit. I wish we all did just that in the new year. Let’s make this new year the best one yet for all of us. Life is too short to spend on stupid shit hopeless dreams. There is so much more to live for and to accomplish. I want to raise my glass tonight to all the new great beginnings and a better life for everyone. Cheers, y’all, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, whatever you celebrate, and a Happy New Year! We all fucking deserve it.
I reminisce about the old days The days that passed and are a long time gone. The days that kept me honest The days which brought suffering and pain.
These days have left the mark inside me They’ve been there for a reason To help me navigate my life. These days have made me the man I am today These days were imprinted in my soul and mind.
My thoughts go back, and I remember thinking How will this all play out for me one day? I knew that something would be happening I never knew what effect it would have on me. The future was always a mystery and kept It’s secrets away from me. This was my life to live, and I did it Knowingly and consciously.
I remember the young soul with all the needs and wants I remember the dreaming and planning and hoping One day for a better life to come. I knew that nothing would stay the same and that The world is turning, flipping, fucking up I just needed to find my place here one day, I needed to survive the hype.
I remember the sunny weather and The sun’s been warming up my soul. The ocean, It was as warm as is the bathtub water, and the sand, It was just like powder, smooth and white. I remember the early mornings of hope I remember the evenings of sunsets, I remember one day passing another, I remember that I grew up too fast. I remember these moments the best.
I lived in one place than another, I knew that nothing was good enough, I knew that I would never be completely happy Anywhere, unless I’ll try too hard. The young’s man heart is always wanting And the soul is full of fire burning hot, Life is always bitching and moaning, And the mind never had the rest or stopped.
And even now, as I sit here thinking, The years now passed, and the youth was gone. I know that fire is still here, and the mind Did calmed itself over the years and struggles But I am still the same, still burning hot. I think and reminisce and go back and forth in life I know that things will never be the same again Even if you try too hard. Life’s moved on, and so did I, Nothing’s remained unchanged, except the little young Man’s soul burned the dreaming hopes away.
The good old days will always be there, The present will become the past, The future will forever be a mystery and One day it also is going to become the past. I used to be so young once, I’m growing older by the day, It doesn’t matter. This is life. Things always happen. One thing to know is that I did not waste my time.
It is another day, another Thursday, another Thanksgiving. I woke up early today, even when I didn’t have to. I just like to be up early in the morning to have it all to myself. This is my time to recharge and think and write and just be all alone in peace and quiet. I love early mornings. I love to see a new day breaking in. Everything in life just happens too fast. One minute it is dark outside, and the next, it is bright daylight, and the morning sun is shining in your face brightly, making it impossible to look straight. I love the sun even when it is thirty degrees outside and cold as shit. Something about the sun makes me want to love, watch, see, be in it, and experience it more and more. I do love warmer weather, though, but it is what it is. We live here in suburban Pennsylvania, and here it is cold, and we live through this fucking cold now to see the nice warm sunny days later.
There are a lot of things and people I need to be thankful for, just in general. Of course, all these things combined made me the man I am today, living the life that I do today, and that’s the fact. After such a fucked up and never-ending craziness in the last almost two years, it feels liberating and peaceful at last. I never knew that this time would come where I could fucking just be myself, get my life back, and just relax. There are no more crazy work demands and routines, and lack of proper live-work balance is in the past. After all of this, I now realize how damaged I’ve been that this normal life still feels strange to me. Fuckness! Life can be rewarding, and great, and balanced, and my fucking dividends are finally being paid back indeed. Who knew this time would ever come? I didn’t. I was always hoping for it, but I never knew this would come to any fucking fruition.
Nothing ever was easy for me, whatever it is. Everything has always been a fucking pain in the ass, a drag, a struggle. Everything required a significant work investment and effort. Early in my life, I’ve learned that I always have to put a lot of work into everything if I want to get anything in return. I knew that this is how my luck works, and it doesn’t give a fuck how nice of a guy I am; it will beat me to the ground on any occasion possible. At least, the good thing for me is that early in my life, I never felt entitled to anything. I knew that I needed to bust my ass to get anywhere. And that is what I’ve been doing with my life, busting my fucking ass all the time, especially in the last five-six years. I got more fortunate than most on a few occasions, but the hard work still preceded anything.
Even just a year ago, I was so lost and damaged and confused and really locked in my own bullshit and madness, literally locked up within the four walls, trying to see and wait, what the fuck is it going to be next. How will it all turn around for me? It was dark and depressing, and it has been my lowest of the low mentally and emotionally. I have never experienced depression so deep and profoundly and constantly. For a brief moment there, it felt normal. Thank God it is behind me now. Thank God I can see the clear sky above my head. Things did get around a lot, especially in the last few months. I am living in a new house, my family and I are all healthy, I am working a new job with much better pay and conditions, and pretty much everything I ever wanted. I’ve got it all now. I finally got everything I ever fucking wanted! And I’ve just realized it as I am writing this. This is still kind of unbelievable to me.
Not so long ago, I’ve been hustling at this fucking insane corporate job, trying to get shit done, trying to make shit happen, trying to fulfill the agenda, and playing a role in all that corporate bureaucracy world. I always had hopes that it would end soon; crazy shit like that cannot last forever; I will see a better life soon. That was the problem. I should’ve run away the minute I’ve seen the shit going sideways. I should’ve never justified any of that bullshit for myself. I should’ve known better. I didn’t, unfortunately. Maybe I was too naive. Perhaps I really thought that I could change something. I guess there are places in the world where you shouldn’t try to change anything. Now I’ve learned my lesson. You are there for as long as you can be there, and then, you should be gone and forget about all that horseshit and move on. That is what I eventually did, but it took me almost a year to get done and over with.
If I had to be thankful, I would be selfishly grateful to myself for sticking through all that bullshit and never giving up. Mentally on a certain level, I was trying to give that shit up, but in reality, I didn’t. I was always trying to make things work to the best abilities. I was trying to navigate through that nonsense with peace of mind and calm and just being patient. It took a lot out of me. I am never the same person again. I don’t know if that crippled me or made me stronger, but I am a much different person today. I am glad I’ve become a different person. This is how life works essentially. It takes you on a trip through all the picks and valleys and makes you understand that you mean shit to it. It shapes you and your inner world, pushing you to get to that new perspective that is more accurate, more true, and eventually helps you see a better side of your life. It comes with no instructions, though. You have to figure it all out on your own.
Happy Thanksgiving to you all! I hope you’ve made this a great one, as you should.
Cold morning air feels refreshing Feels like morning, feels like a new day. It feels like freedom.
You inhale the smoke of a cigarette And you sip on that morning brew Like it’s your energy, It’s your fuel That will drive you through this day.
The trees stay cold and motionless And the sun is waking up Yet again, Yet again, bringing you another day To live, to fight, to struggle, to prove That you can make it.
You are making it alright, Good things are fucking coming As they should After such a prolonged suffering And chaos and misery.
You’ve got another chance to make things better You’ll get more of these chances Hopefully, As you go through this day and another day, And another cigarette and coffee In the morning.
Thoughts come and go, and some stay, Problems come and go, and some stay. This is how it is, and it always has been this way. This is your life and your choice, and your battle.
As the world wakes up to face another life You wake up to meet your demons, You trick them sometimes, Sometimes you struggle, sometimes They are just another you. Another side of you.
You know it, and you know it well. And the cold morning air knows it As its getting warmer As the new day unwinds And brings you this life to Live again. Yet one more time.
