Category: Myself

Journal, Myself, Preeti

Life Failed: Love/Family Did Not

Sanjay Sabarwal
By Jemal Yarbrough

I am not Sanjay Sabarwal, co-owner of Ziba Beauty.  I am not a lawyer.  I am not a promoter.  I am not a double major from UCLA.  I am not a columnist.  I am not a former volunteer at the Lexington Juvenile detention center in Kentucky.  I am not a past political intern.  NCTE) I am not a stroke victim.  I am not familiar with cancer.

I am not,  I am not, I am not any of these facts.  All my life, even at this moment, I have believed I was destined to be something greater; more significant, a personality. Focusing only on my desires and wants, I forgot how to be.  Spending energy (and credit cards) to showcase a life imagined by many but afforded by few, I drowned my soul painfully.  Surrounded by many gadgets and the must of my dog (her dog), I became empty, a negative, a compilations of could be’s, would be’s, should-be’s, would’ve’s.

So who am I?  Perhaps that’s not as an interesting a question as what I am.  I am part of a love that I did not think possible, that I had heard of and seen in fiction.  After 4 years, her face is still the first image projected onto my thoughts.  Her eyes an amazing greenish-yellow, rivaling those of cats (domestic and otherwise), her temper and stubbornness exasperating but befitting the queen she has the potential to be.

Then there is my family, my energy trough where I go to replenish myself.  I draw my strength from them like a greedy gambler who can’t get enough. I steal their inspiration and good wishes so I can face the cannot’s and will not’s in my life.  I use their love and faith in me to see myself.  It is then I become Sanjay Sabarwal.

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Journal, Myself

Dreams

Sanjay Sabarwal
Free twitter bar
Image via Wikipedia/ twitter.com/zibasanjay

The images of talking to Preeti’s dad evoked my dread of the long-awaited conversation of what next?  Flash of Gurjit crying reminded me of Tejpal’s as well as the death of the normalcy of my life and of the challenges ahead.  Still I dived in these murky as my heartbeat slowed, well aware that the heat of the blankets told of an intense and long sleep.  The room become brighter as if to mark my awareness.  No longer did I want to ignore the idea that I was awake, instead I fished for more.

I marveled that I only had one drink yesterday yet told everyone I had two.  Why?  I wondered.  What was it about being in certain crowds that made you want to be an overachiever in an activity designed to kill brain cells? What was it about social discomfort that made me want to grasp to the one liquid that could return me back to feeling like everything was ok temporarily. How was it different from my dreams?

Then it hit me.  While I thought about last night, the dreams had made their escape.  It was as if I had been purposefully distracted so they could go to their secret hiding place. My breathing slowed, the blankets cooled, I reached for my phone to get my daily Twitter and Words with Friends fix  and the dreams went further away and suddenly the urge to write feels silly and trite.  I am left holding simplistic words and thoughts rather than the deep implications my dreams carried.  Conned, once again by my mind, I reluctantly came to my page and had nothing to offer except the memory of my dreams gone.

I closed my eyes, and nothing came save for the feeling of betrayal I caused myself.

 

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Journal, Myself

Life Goals

Sanjay Sabarwal
A white Lamborghini Concept S in the Lamborghi...
Image via Wikipedia
The Lone Soldier by Jemal Y

There I stand stoically ready to face the  world,mute but  capable, deaf but open to the world.  Many of my dreams sacrificed to the dullness of meaningless days.   Future goals set aside for empty gratification, my life resembled nothing like I  imagined it would.  No longer.

Yesterday, I ran across an old document titled 101 Life Goals.  Curious, I opened it up and it was something I had written EXACTLY one year ago.  I wont bore you with all 101 but the top ten were:

1)     Publish a Memoir

2)     Get Married (for the last time!)

3)     Get an MBA

4)     Have Kids (2-3)

5)     Become an accomplished General Counsel

6)     Get a Lamborghini

7)     Publish Fiction

8)     Have a great library

9)     Become a Gourmet Chef

10) Travel the World

The 2 that stood out to me right away (besides the Lamborghini) were about publishing fiction and my memoir.  I am proud to say that I have started those 2 life goals, and for once I had written something that wouldn’t just be a mute witness to my aimless wandering.  No longer would my passion be a lone soldier in the battlefield of dreams.  I was finally on a mission that made sense and made me feel that for once I wasnt a slave to words that just burst out of me for no reason, but the master of my life. 

That wasnt the only thing to celebrate, I was also closer to other goals as well (including marriage, the library, and the kids) yet it was telling that I had done nothing to become a gourmet chef.  I love to cook but I hardly ever do it anymore, and the tons of dust-covered books in my kitchen are telling me that perhaps that’s a goal I will get to when I get to the ones I really want to achieve. 

I had also changed on life goal, from becoming a MBA to doing my MFA (Masters in Fine Arts) with an emphasis on creative writing.  Nothing like reading something from your past to know that for once your on track. 

No longer a lone soldier but a fighter for the things that matter most.

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Dreaming

Sanjay Sabarwal
By Jemal Y

I tried to hold on, I really did.  Waking up, and running here to this page only showed me something I knew quite well.  The blank white space matching the insides of my brain.  The thoughts as empty as the dreams I had for my future.  I wanted what I saw to be real, to be put down and documented so I can say it existed but instead I sit here, attempting to grab sunlight with my hand and finding it fruitless.

I see flashes of smiles and one shot of me crying.  About what?  I dont know, except the tears came from deep within, feeding of the years of stored up sadness.

Just small flashes of tears and smiles.  Kind of like my past.  Nothing makes sense except that perhaps I have dreamt all my life. 

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Journal, Myself

Perhaps

Sanjay Sabarwal
Jemal Y

Perhaps the window to my soul closed a long time ago.  perhaps, I have been dreaming a long time, and now I am awake.  Perhaps what I thought to be my world, my life was nothing more than a string of moments and memories put together so I can say I lived.  Perhaps I am the homeless man on the right, fantasizing I am the writer on this post.  Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

 
Those 7 letters have become ingrained in me, telling me nothing, give me no direction just a vague vision of what is to come, but perhaps that’s all an illusion.
 
I sit like that man, looking down half asleep, hoping, wishing, prayer for perhaps a better day, life or illusion  or perhaps not.
 
I do not know where I want to be.  I do know where I shall be.  I just know that perhaps it will all work out
 
Perhaps
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Drowning/Overwhelmed/Liar

Sanjay Sabarwal
by Jemal Y

This picture perfectly describes my feelings these past few months.   I cannot breathe due to the hypocrisy surrounding me nor can I rely on the friends I thought I had.  I cannot save people from their mistakes nor can I  can trust them when they lie to me about them.  I cannot be the perfect boyfriend or always present.  I cant, I won’t get it right, I know that but still I keep trying to move forward, to keep moving so I don’t drown in the despair of sorrow and helplessness.  Gotta avoid the tears, the realization that our lives are no longer headed on the paths we had planned on, no! counted on.

I wish I knew where to start. Perhaps shake the one that cheated or the one that got cheated on and then lied to me about ending it.  Or do I  shake the one with a selfish boyfriend who couldn’t even call or text his cousin while she battles the big C but has time to meet his girlfriend or yell at someone’s family because I am overwhelmed and feel utterly alone and helpless?  How many people do I stop talking to?  I realize that everyone’s an adult and the problem isnt them but me.  I am drowning myself.

Because the truth is, I am sick of people, their lies, their insecurities, their willingness to be fake or care when they only really only care about themselves.  Sick of being around people who say they are there but in reality are only there because it seems the right thing to say but not do.

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