Tag: United States

Myself, Preeti

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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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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Cancer of Words: A Blog Post

Sanjay Sabarwal
Cyclops projecting an optic blast. Art by Jack...
Image via Wikipedia

The words just sit there.  The guilt sits behind them.  Yet nothing moves.  I plead with the clock to slow down, to let me gather whatever’s lying around so I do not feel like a fraud.  Yet nothing comes.  It is as if I am spent from fighting the cancer in my beloved, and while the movie reel in my head sputters along, the projection screen is blank.

I can’t stop thinking of writing, and seeing every conversation as potential dialogue.  It’s as if my body is become one huge receptacle for ideas and possible stories.  Yet I want it to stop.  I feel like Scott Summers from the Xmen, unless I put some glasses on, I can’t stop the lasers from destroying the world near m me.

Just stop, I beg regretting ever having starting this muse yet it grows just like the enemy in my love.  Her body betrayed her and now I feel like my mind is doing the same.  The words keep growing and I pray they don’t spread to my hands because I need the energy and the strength to by her side. 

I want nothing except for her.  She is my life. Without her, I am just another person, but together we become one unit that can take on the world.  But we have been let down by our bodies, hers turning against her and making her wonder what she did to deserve this and mine seeing everything as a reason to write. 

But both of us are wrong.  All we is the present and blame worry sadness don’t belong because the reality is we will both survive, one as a writer and one as former cancer patient.  That is our new reality.  It doesn’t take anything away from us, it just has made us a thousand times stronger. 

While we will kill one cancer, we will allow another one to spread so it can kill the doubts worries and sadness in others.  In hindsight, maybe being an X Man, isn’t such a bad thing.

Myself, Preeti

Nothing Else Matters

Sanjay Sabarwal
A couple walking on a Pacific Ocean beach, mis...
Image by Wonderlane via Flickr

I have managed to avoid thinking about it for the past few weeks, but now with it around the corner, I realize that our lives about to change dramatically.  Not badly, just differently.  One thing’s for sure, love and kindness have to fill our moments before we sink into the depth of anger and self-pity.  That’s not easy to admit or say to someone who is so close to my heart that it feels that I am being operated on instead of her.  And I wish  could spare her the emotional pain of feeling incomplete. 

I want her to know that having her in my life and spending the rest of our lives growing old together while bickering and fighting about the silliest things is what matters.  That is the life I want with her.  I want the small moments of silence that we have when we are driving long distance, the quick kisses when we are away from each other even a few moments, the shared laughter among dear friends, and the constant questions about each others state of mind.  That’s what matter.  That’s the day by day I want and need.  Nothing else matters. 

And yet I know we are entering a dark period, and the next few weeks will be a test.  The real question is will we able to handle it, or will we both sink into a self-pitying quicksand that neither one of us get can get out of. 

Only the new weeks can answer that.  For now, all I can do is pray that she sees us as I do: together, forever

Nothing Else Matters.