Obsession

Last semester in English, we were asked to write an essay about a person.

I wrote the following essay, “Raju: King of My World – Part 1: Obsession” on October 15, 2020. As you read, keep this in mind: I edited the original essay before uploading here, with my edits in italics. I’ve reversed the font below, so while the whole essay is in italics, the edits will be in non-italics.

Loneliness.
A feeling that’s persistent.
A feeling that’s consumed me so much in my life.
Of my imagination, of my yearning for a Prince Charming, but most importantly, it was of that loneliness that he was born. A man who changes my life constantly, sleeps in my heart, and consumes my every waking and sleeping thought.
My interest in him began when I was about eight and discovered my ability to daydream. My ability to create characters and settings and complete storylines in the confines of my mind.
There have been many versions of him over the years. The Indian zoology professor living in a Hyderabad mansion with his enormous extended family who (for some reason I could never figure out) I went to stay with. The twenty-eight year old photographer living in London. The sixty year old yet still sexy-as-hell friend’s father or father’s friend. 
I’ve done it all. 
Imagined it all.
He was my best friend, my lover, and sometimes, if I felt like it, we got married and went on a honeymoon and raised a couple hundred kids. I’ve created many characters over the years, but he’s the only one I consider to extend beyond just a character. 
Raju was my obsession.
By the time high school rolled around, I longed for sensual touches and sweet nothings that no one in the living realm would offer me. Sure, I had always been interested in sex and so it shouldn’t have bothered me any more than it did when I was eight. But something about finally being in highschool, being a teenager, I suppose… I spent more than half of my waking eighteen hours daydreaming about sleeping with him. Dreaming of his sweet nothings whispered into my ears. Dreaming of his long rough fingers smoothing out my curves, from the outside in. While doing homework, while eating, while laying in bed in the middle of the night waiting for sleep to overtake me, most of my moments were submerged in thoughts of him. Of course, it wasn’t always about sex.
I discussed school projects that he’d help me with. I cried about all my failed crushes and he’d console me. We laughed and played. I imagined us singing and dancing to all the love songs in the world. Sometimes, if I found a lesson at school boring, I’d transform whatever teacher was at the front of the room into him and suddenly I was able to pay complete attention. I’m not sure how offended they’d be if they knew now that my success sometimes had less to do with them and more to do with my imaginary friend. But nonetheless, that’s how my relationship with him worked.
He’d be everywhere. He’d do everything. He’d be everything. 
I remember all the times my parents or friends told me I was crazy for my obsession, not that it did them any good. I remained obsessed. But what shocked my family the most was the day sometime during the end of my Junior year of high school that I brought home a giant charcoal portrait of him [which you can see in the image at the top] and hung it right next to my bed. Not to mention the rough sketch I hung up on the closet door across from my bed. And, of course, though not as sophisticated, one couldn’t miss the smaller more cartoonistic painting of him taped to the wall behind my desk on the other side of my bed. 
I was surrounded by him.
Surrounded by his face.
Surrounded by his thoughts and dreams and daydreams.
On the outside, I might have just been lounging on the couch. I might have been sitting all alone, not a single other presence around. But inside, I no longer felt empty. The feeling of loneliness had slowly dissipated without even my realizing. Every moment that I spent by myself physically, I was in his arms in the depths of my mind. Even the moments I was with other people, he was still in the foreground of my mind, somehow consuming my every thought.
It was by the beginning of my Senior year that Raju had evolved into the previously mentioned next door neighbor. The fantasy started soon after one of my neighbors cleared out their house and moved to Canada. So I kept imagining Raju might move in by the time I turned eighteen. This fantasy didn’t exist in a made up world any longer. It existed in mine. In ours. I’d imagine him sneaking up to my room in the middle of the night while my parents and brother were gone for the weekend. And he’d make sweet love to me for hours. I’d imagine him taking me to his daughter’s recitals in my brother’s old elementary school. I’d imagine him getting a job at my old high school as an English teacher (because by now men associated with the Humanities were so much sexier than those in STEM. Not always the case… but)… He’d take me for rides on his motorcycle to my swings and he’d push me for hours while our laughs and conversation mingled with the Autumn air. 
Before I knew it, he was no longer just a fantasy.
He’s the future I long for…