“Feeling Being Me” is an essay I wrote for my Honors Freshman Composition class in my first semester of college. I wrote it on October 26, 2020. It has an MML vibe so I figured I’d post it along with my reflections on it post-reading it after two-and-a-half years.
It’s fun to lose myself in the music… just dancing around doing some chore not thinking about anyone or anything else.
That was the text I sent to one of my close friends Thursday night when he asked me what I was doing. It was one of those things I said in a rant, trying to relate how I was feeling in the moment. The second I hit Send, I paused and stared at my words.
“Not thinking about anyone or anything else”? When was the last time I did that?
Never.
In my time in this world, I’ve constantly been consumed by my surroundings, by the people around me, by dealings of the past and of the future. I’m constantly daydreaming about my life with another.
With my father, with my brother, with my best friends, with my lovers.
About what they said the last time we met.
About what I’d say the next time we meet.
Overanalyzing every single second between us and planning out every future encounter.
I’m thinking about how my father is constantly joking that after my brother successfully completes college he’ll quit his job and [redacted] and be posting selfies from Hawaii. I remember all the times I joked that he could expect me in those selfies right next to him. I long for the day that we can finally escape [redacted] and go on those undisturbed adventures. [redacted].
I’m reminiscing about how my brother nearly gave me a heart attack by joking that he had started dating. It was a lie of course, a test of my common sense, to see if he was clever enough to pull it off. And I should probably be a little upset or disturbed, but instead I laugh my head off remembering all the other times he’s tried to pull life-changing pranks on me. As if he were my own son, a small child in my arms, I couldn’t get mad at him no matter what. I predict that no matter how old we get, even though he’s only [a few years] younger, he will always be a five-year-old in my mind.
I’m remembering how my bestest friend and closest confidante moved all the way to the opposite side of the world, to [redacted], and somehow it scares me that I no longer miss her as much as I did when she first moved. I look forward to visiting her soon, either in [redacted] or in [redacted] where she’s applied for college. I can almost imagine how tight I’ll hug her and how I’ll never want to let go and how we’ll just fall back into the same rhythm we’ve somehow managed to fall back into every time we text even though nearly a month’s passed since the last time.
I’m musing about all the lovers I’ve wished for but most of all of him. Of the one that captured my heart before he captured my eyes. The way he folds his right arm on the left and waves his left in gestures while speaking to someone or another. About how he’s constantly fidgeting and constantly running around and so energetic, yet makes me feel so peaceful. About his red and black plaid pants and the steel blue grey long sleeves shirt that made me want to fold into his arms and stay there forever. But of course I can’t, because he so gently told me let’s just be friends and now he’s seeming to take the place of my closest confidant.
So instead I’ll be imagining Raju, the best creation of my mind. Visualizing his hazelnut eyes, his henna colored hair, his not-so-light no-so-dark just-perfect skin tone that matches mine. His long fingers that brush my hair aside and his tender lips that kiss my neck. Or that sexy mustache that tickles me every time.
This is how I spend my moments.
Daydreaming.
Focusing on everyone and everything everywhere else.
So the minute I sent that text last Thursday night, I wondered if it was a lie. Except it wasn’t. For the past three hours, I’d been completely living in the moment. Losing myself in the music, dancing the night away, reorganizing my entire room on a whim (don’t ask me why). The chime of the silver jingles on my anklets as I tap my feet to the beat thumping on my ear drums. The sway of my arms that follow the high notes and the low. The way my hair flies around me in a haze as I twirl around the room, the cold floor warming to my steps. And best of all, the rapid pounding in my heart that I can hear loudly every time the music stops, in anticipation of the next song, of my next steps.
I don’t know a better way to describe that feeling. That feeling of simply being me. Of recognizing I don’t need another to be satisfied, to be happy. I have that right now, right here, with me.
Post-Reading Reflection/Commentary:
That was a really nice night, I won’t deny it. But that relief I felt about not daydreaming… it was short lived. I’m terrified about the daydreams stopping. The daydreams are what fuel my stories. Even if they are less images and sounds and more so just thinking about life. Daydreaming is how I’m writing right now. Daydreaming is in fact how I wrote that essay.
I never want the daydreams to stop, good or bad. I need them.
Also, 1000 points to anyone who can guess who Mr. Plaid Pants is… I totally forgot I wrote about him in this essay. I’ve captured him in one too many pieces of writing but maybe it’ll still never be enough. Some souls just have a way of capturing yours and constantly being a part of those daydreams. I’m sure I’ll still be writing about him and all the others years and years and years later. And there’s nothing wrong with that. If anything, there’s everything right with that.
I can safely say though that I’ve reached a point in my life that I’m satisfied with never, ever, ever dating him. I don’t know about “meant to be” and all that. But I know that as much as I love him and may always, I do not want to be with him. That took me forever to realize. But some people work better for your sanity in your daydreams than in real life.
Raj is still around. Raj will always be around. He’s the one daydream I love the most. Because no one else can truly know him since I created him. I’m selfish like that.
I do still love to dance though. And daydreams or no, I don’t think I’ll ever stop.
