Who's That Girl

Obsessed

In the year 2008, I was in the fifth grade. I was quite short on friends, and all the other girls seemed to mock me, to exclude me, to push me away

from their happy worlds and lock me out. I was told I was too sensitive, that those girls were never deliberately mean to me. But it felt that way to me. And that was what mattered.

Still, I cannot blame them. I was different that year. No one could relate, and those who stuck around could barely stand my behavior. I felt bad; I knew I was annoying and stupid and whatever else they thought of me. But I had lost control, and I couldn't find a way to rein it back into my hands.

I was unhealthily obsessed. O-b-s-e-s-s-e-d. It was not until after he had finished second on American Idol that I became infatuated with him. I am not sure how it began. I just remember watching re-runs of his performances, then downloading the songs he sang by using just about every illegal site there was. I wanted David Archuleta everything: pins, T-shirts, posters, even a lamp! My mother bought me shirts, posters, and a set of pins, for which I was too mentally unstable to be very thankful for at the time.

On the night before the release of his self-titled debut album, I pulled my first all-nighter. It was a Monday, but there was no school the next day. Why? I do not remember. I do remember lounging on my bedroom floor, reading by lamplight. My favorite CD's played in my sister's Walkman and headphones hugged my ears. A can of Coca Cola and leftover Halloween Twix bars sat at my side.

As I sucked caramel from the thick chocolate candies, I didn't know that would be the last time a Twix bar would enter my mouth for around two years. And as I sipped the Coca-Cola I had treated myself to for that special night, I hadn't the slightest clue that it would be the last time the sweet bubbliness crossed my lips. I did all this in secret, and my mother did not know I was pulling an all-nighter at all. She found out the next morning. It was November 11th, 2008. I told her I had kept my eyes open until four-thirty , but had gone straight to sleep soon after, a book clutched in my hand.

That day, she took me to Walmart around eleven a.m. It was the only store that carried the "Special Edition" album. We searched the music aisles over and over again, but to no avail. His album was not there. Taylor Swift's second album, Fearless, had also been released that day and was on the shelves, right on time. Frustrated, I had my mom ask an employee for a solution to our "crisis". He told her it might arrive later that afternoon. My mom was about to leave right then, vowing to take me to Target later. But I, my rationality clouded by greed and the illness within my mind, begged her to make the store do something about it. The album was specifically scheduled to debut at midnight. I thought the store had ought to own up to their mistake.

After my mother inquired about it a second time, the employee raided the newly shipped in boxes. When it didn't turn up right away, I was crushed yet again.But I believe that it was in the second box that he found it. I paid for it with my allowance, and was finally content.

The obsession didn't stop at my impulsive urge to buy all his merchandise. It affected everything I did. He liked hockey, so I wondered if I should play. He enjoyed shooting hoops, so I considered adding a basketball to my overcrowded Christmas list. He listened to Alanis Morrissette, so I thought I'd ought to download some of her music. It was as if I needed his "approval" everytime I moved a muscle: He is seven years and three months older than me; I should act more grown up, I thought.

He occupied my mind almost every minute of the day. I wrote pathetic, tuneless songs about him. I memorized his family's names as if they were cousins of mine. And when I learned of his possible love interests, I would sob while writing angry ballads, then cry myself to sleep. I was convinced he was "the one", with his humble personality, his youthful face, and eyes the color of the caramel in my Twix bars. I believed his songs were somehow meant for me; their lyrics stolen from my most secret fantasies. I was so sick, my mind was sick.

I surfed the Web for hours each day, scouring it for information about his private life. I joined a fan forum and chatted frequently with other girls about my latest finds. Those girls were my best friends then. They understood me. They weren't annoyed like my other, real friends. Those friends endured my endless rants about David this and David that until I could tell they were close to exploding. He was all I wanted to talk about and the subject no one I knew wanted to hear about.

During school that year, I got a B in math for the first time in years. (Before that I always received all A's). I was shy in class, and as soon as I got home I would rush through my homework then dive into my online world. I stopped taking walks with my family after dinner, claiming I had "things to do" online.I rarely had friends over, but on one rare occasion that I did, we finished a whole bag of Goldfish crackers together, for which I was quite ashamed. I ate like that a lot after school that year. And to maximize my computer time, I ate while fixed in my chair, staring at posts and commentary.

I got excited over every little thing he did. Everything was special and amazing and wonderful just because it was about him: David Archuleta, who, after I found out he was Mormon and probably wouldn't marry a Christian, I stayed up all night crying for. David, who I practically went hysterical about when it was announced that he was touring with Demi Lovato the summer of 2009. David Archuleta, the short, golden-eyed American Idol star I wasted a year on.