Tag: God

Myself

2010

Sanjay Sabarwal
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Image by gynti_46 via Flickr

You weren’t a good friend, come to think of it you weren’t much of anything except a source of constant grief.  I am not sorry to see you go, in fact I would say I am glad but I am not going to even dignify that sentiment in relation to you.  But then I realize I have something you cannot take away which are my friends, my family and best of all my brand new wife, Preeti so perhaps I can begrudge you a bit of a farewell.  Except today is just another day, and that’s how I plan to spend it.  No parties, no celebrations just a night in with my beautiful Preeti, just the 2 of us lying next to each other, savoring the closeness and the love of all the ones dear to us in memory.

You weren’t easy to deal with.  From taking a dear family member, giving me a stroke to afflicting the love of my life with a life changing disease, I can definitely say you have made it a mission to be memorable except you are not.  I am not going to give you that power.  Instead, you get this tiny post almost 2 hours before you die in my memory.  You don’t exist, and if you plan to tell your friend 2011 to do the same, then it will get the same middle finger.

I am not bitter.  I am not angry.  I am just done.  I know what I have in my life, and guess what, I know I am rich in that.  Forget money, forget fame, forget the material things or the many meaningless promises I have made at other New Year Eve’s.  I have what I need and want.  Now all that’s left is for the rest of the year to recognize that they have  been reduced to numerical symbols, meaning nothing except for the passage of time.  If you thought you were going to beat me down, 2010, you were mistaken.

Hear me out 2011, you might want to stay on your best behavior before you, too become another torn out calendar.  You have been warned.

Also, 2010, FUCK YOU.

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Truth

Sanjay Sabarwal

I spent 20  minutes trying to copy an image that perfectly captures my feelings and in my quest to get that picture right, I lost sight that I needed to write.  There was a reason I am at an unholy hour on a Sunday night.  A need to get it out all out.  But the truth is, I am avoiding writing because this year will perhaps be the culmination of something I hadn’t dared to think about in years: Marriage.

In a way, I am already married, and the vision of being with the one I love for the rest of my life not at all daunting, in fact even exciting.  Yet I do not want to cross this path alone, and I do not want to do it in darkness.  No more hiding.  No more lying.  The truth will set us free, but more importantly allow us to live.

Lately, I have become superstitious that what my beautiful love is going through can be cleansed by the truth.  I no longer want to lie to anyone about anything.  Yes, to answer the ones wronged, I am trying to be AN ANGEL because I am willing to do whatever it takes to start a life partnership on a path of clarity, reality but best of all honesty.

It’s not easy as it looks.  Recently, I told a dear friend about her fiancée (who also happens to be a good friend of mine) who I felt cheated on her (a mere two weeks after he proposed to her) based on what he told me.  Yes, I broke the man rules because the truth is that I am not one of the boys, and I can no longer keep quiet on what is wrong.  As someone pointed out, as long as your know you will lose one friend, then go for it.  And I did, and the only thing I really have to show for it is that my conscience is clear, I am less one friend and discovering that the person I thought to be “saved” has decided to go back to the friend. So now I am less two friend, full of the feeling that determined people will hurt themselves no matter what anyone does, and perhaps nothing will change in life except me.

And then there is Preeti’s cousin who lives 15 miles away but has not bothered to call, or even stop by even though she’s fighting for her life and future.  Sure, he can go see his girlfriend but heaven forbid he actually check on a supposed close family member.  And then I caught myself.  I could do this all day long.  I could begin to stop talking to everyone that I think has done me or Preeti wrong but then there wouldn’t be many friends left.  The reality is, people are selfish, dishonest, indifferent but they also happen to be dearest to someone in our lives.  What do you do then?  Quit friends?  Quit life?  Quit the truth?  No, I realize.  You move on.  You forget.  The ones that mean something stick around, and the ones that do not, vanish.  The truth makes certain of that.

photo

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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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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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Waheguru/Music

Sanjay Sabarwal
Symbol of Sikhism, white and golden version.
Image via Wikipedia

Sitting in the car, the religious text started without me.  Let me rephrase, it started playing the 540 years or old words but I was lost in the marvel that I actually was hearinng music of my choice after almost 2 years in my car. 

A brief shake of the head, and I began to focus on the language I didn’t understand (and perhaps never would).  For a brief moment, I wondered who wa s I kidding myself but the singular string in the background of the track somehow resonated, and I caught myself trying to speak the words along side.  There weren’t many I could repeat but I used an immediate substitute: Waheguru. 

At first, I felt foolish, fake and forgetful.  But I continued replacing my ignorance with what I knew.  In that moment, I was one with Him.

My Old lover came back.  I betrayed her without a though, used her until I was satisfied, raped her of all meaning, but now I needed her help.  I sat in the car with just her repeated one word: Waheguru.  The music changed through the tracks but the word stayed the same. Wah Guru (wow, God).  That’s it.  He had come in Her shape from my past.  Music was my true love and passion and I had disrobed and discarded her useless a long time ago or so I thought.  Now She came to fill my soul up to the brim.  Nothing else entered, a first in over 2 decades.  Just me and the Word in the car, speeding along over 80 miles an hour, devouring the pavement the same way I used to the thousands of songs in my library. 

Waheguru.  In the noise surrounding my world, but in the quiet of the car, only one word was my companion, one my word my lover, one word my savior. 

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Pain Please

Sanjay Sabarwal
Mental Health Awareness Ribbon
Image via Wikipedia

In just 2 months,  the life I knew has been obliterated.  I search for the words to express that, but besides pain there is nothing.  Actually. I wish there was pain.  Just numbness.  I sit here in a daze, not writing particularly well just thoughts and emotions fighting with God asking why her?  What has she done to deserve?  Is being with me so bad that she had to be punished physically?

No one’s saying it to me, but they don’t need to.  I feel it.  I know I am being watched with the wonder, did the constant stress of being in this relationship cause this?  What other explanation is there for someone so young?

Praying to the God so frequently that now only word goes out to him: Please.  As in, please change this.  Please stop this.  Please fix this.  Please cure her.  Please give it to me.  Please stop.  Please forgive me.  Please let me take this on.  PLEASE.

Nothing else comes except the numbness, wishing her pain was mine, wanting her life to be mine.  She doesn’t deserve this. No one does.  Why her? Why not me? 

I look up and hear nothing.  Please.  Nothing. 

Life as I know it is over.  Nothing remains.  Just the pain. 

Please