Month: May 2026

Its been a while I wrote with anger. Its an emotion I mostly work to bury due to my past. I also know that my stroke and brain surgery make me susceptible to my emotions so I have had an extensive morning routine and other habits to rein the rage inside me. But its there, and it surges through me and I realize that just like lava they get to come out once in a while except there will be damage so others around me. So back in I try to force it in. I keep it locked up. I speak to it. I beg for it not to come out, to remain locked inside, sealed so no one around me hurts except me. That I can mostly handle. The habits help. Zyan helps. Friends help. And then there are others, well no so helpful so I get to smile and bare my teeth to show my nonchalance.

I also know that when I let it out, it comes out in heaves and then disappears right away. I am unable to sustain for long whereas some around me can do for days, weeks, months, years and it amazes me that they are able to see the world in just those hues. I sometime envy them. Easier to blame others, to make others the cause of their misery rather than take accountability in any sort of way. I wish I could be that way. Easier to be the victim than to take ownership. Easier to point out what others are not doing rather than look inward. Easier to gaslight than notice what others are feeling and doing.

And so I sit here and seethe, but I also know that this too shall. I know when anger reigns, destruction follows, and the clean up takes much longer than just taking a breath, shaking your head and going back into the situation. Most of the times I am able to do that but there are times when it becomes too much and anger bursts out in rapid fire where it wants to burn it all down. Burn my life and those around me. But now I see that and the old me would have reveled in letting it burn, but this Sanjay, this not so wise but experienced Sanjay lets it out here. He speaks to those who love and respect him, who remind him of who he is really. Because there are times I get lost and believe how another sees me. Someone who doesn’t respect me, challenges me at every time. finds me inadequate, thinks I am an idiot, a doddering old fool who can do nothing right. When I let myself be seen as they see me, I shrink, I hide, keep quiet but inside angers melts a bit of my core.

In this morning quiet, anger has subsided and I am surrounded by my thoughts. The cloudy day reflects my gloom. Echoes of how I am seen still reverberate inside me, but today I get to start over. I rebuild. I shake it off, and focus on what’s in front of me. And then I try again.

One of the many things that sucks about getting older is becoming aware of death in a very real well. Not only in the form of dropping performance, aches and pains but hearing of those whose journey has come to an end. Over the weekend another friend lost their parent, the kind of loss that’s hard to explain to others who haven’t lost the one figure that has featured in the entire background of the lives. The operating system so to speak, whether or not its positive. The fact that we came from that person, and when that line severs, there is a dangling line that no longer connects, no longer can you draw from it, even if its just presence, no longer can you learn from it, share with it, hug it, hate it, love it, hold it, push it away, laugh with it and on and on the list goes because there is no one to look at you from the side.

Just an invisible person who now remains in your thoughts, and images from the past, through shared stories, and memories that seem to get harder to remember, but the pain still sharp as ever,. Each time you hear about another losing a parent, I am right back to my loss as selfish as that sounds. The urge to tug at the line again remerges except there is no one there to respond anymore. A certain quietness enters me as I go pay my respects, and if nothing else there is a knowing that can be shared but you wish you didn’t have to because losing a parent makes you that child again. No matter the age, you become that little boy or girl who just wants his support from that person.

Much of my grief is about me. I know that much. Much of my pain self inflicted which is why quietness suits me best. Its hard to explain to someone that they truly won’t understand you until they experience it but that’s something I would never wish about anyone. Its like death itself, no one will comprehend it until they are at its door and by then its too late. The regret no longer relevant, the could haves should haves meaningless in the front of that endless void. Each death a personal reminder that there is still time to do the right things, to reconnect, to love, to laugh, hug, spend time in meaningful ways not just with those around us but the ones that matter to us.

The ones we think of often and always a ping of desire comes to see them. So instead of thinking it, it is time to make it a reality, to live a life of meaning so that one day you can teach your children emotional depth so they can do better than you did. So age becomes me, and while I dont claim wisdom in the the broad sense, I am wiser, and now I am determined to ensure that my aging isn’t one of pain and regret but of action, and connection. Because I will be damned if I face my end with regret, I plan to do as Papa did with peace and by the love of his life by his side.