“I think there are people that help you become the person that you end up being, and you can be grateful for them even if they were never meant to be in your life forever.”
When Diane said this, I did not pay much attention to it. But then, like how Steve jobs connected the dots backward, I connected people. In every instance of my life, I have never pushed these people apart; I also never made any effort to keep them.
I have been a quiet guy for most of my life. Quite average. Like someone who is not just bad at being good but also bad. But somehow, by sheer randomness, I met people who trusted me. Trusted me with responsibilities. With friendship. With something I never did understand. They somehow connected my dots forward.
I do try to be a friend back. As much as I can. Which is never enough.
For a larger part of my life, I have shadowed this with an excuse of my nature. That solitude is what I seek. You soon realize that for most of us, solitude is only different from loneliness when you know you have someone to fall back on. And on a larger part, that's not solitude, that’s selfishness.
It wasn’t that they were suddenly not your friends, but you were selfish in your own amalgamation of sadness and solitude. The reality is, friendships require effort, apart from trust.
But all these friends, seniors, and random humans I met diverted me to a trajectory that made me grow. How all the efforts I did on myself were to live up to their e̶x̶p̶e̶c̶t̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶ trust.
There have been instances when I have gone a few extra steps and exceptions to my personality to save friendships.
An important part of self-discovery is to realize that people don’t stay forever but you can still be grateful for the time they are there. That the path of independence is filled with the disappearance of people. They could be someone you are sincere about, but the factors of disproportionate self-growth and physical distance come into play.
Looking back, I never knew that the last time when I went cycling with my neighborhood friends was the last time of all. Before we all moved to colleges and shifted countries. To talk about life at the park to probably never talk again. I did not know it was the last time I met that senior who for no reason guided me in a way that changed what I ended up doing. To the girl, I first dated. To my neighbour whom I spent my childhood with until I changed the house. To several friends before they were another contact. Many of those were because I either did not reply to their text or did not put efforts to text first.
There is something special about the last moments of the show. Something that made me pause it. The significance of ending it with Diane and Bojack, a pair that hurt each other as friends and did not even know about each other’s life for a long time.
But then they do meet. Randomly. Until the next time.
They will never be as close as they were before, for the directions diverge. The scene presents nostalgia for the change of relationship, not with others but with yourself. How much you change because of that tiniest of push by someone. And there are many temporary someone’s.
For some, of your own accord, you can still put in effort without any expectations.
For others, you can only look back and acknowledge that it was nice while it lasted.
