Unfortunately, I AM like Bojack Horseman

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I thought I was over it.
I really thought I was over it.
More than that, I was hoping I’d be over it by now, praying even.

I’ve done everything in my power to distract myself, to distance myself, yet the universe still brings me back to him. It’s funny how that happens.

This is supposed to be my new beginning. My next chapter. Old characters aren’t supposed to make reappearances after they get killed off. So why, everywhere I look, do I see him?

I went to Austin, and now he went to Austin. I start planning a trip to New York, and now suddenly he’s in New York. I’m a fan of coincidences just as much as the next person, but you have got to be kidding me.

I really did think, after a week of closure with myself, a week of introspection and tuning myself to my feelings, that I’d be over it. I should’ve known. Feelings don’t just go away like that. No matter how much you try to suppress them. They’ll always resurface. It’s horrible because I can feel that my heart has moved on, it no longer pangs when I see his face, my ears no longer perk up at the mention of anything slightly related to him, but my head, oh my head, it still feels hot every time I think about him. I feel my ears redden as my body temperature rises, it’s like I can feel my brain rattling inside of my skull, begging to be let out.

There often are days where I wish I could detach my brain from myself and look me in the eyes and tell myself to “Get it together”. I can’t do that, though.

I really thought that I was in a much happier place than I was a month ago, and I still think that I am maybe just not as much as I thought so before. But that’s the thing about healing, it’s not linear, it looks more like a sine curve, if anything. I think I reached my high a couple days ago, and now I’m coming back down back into a… not exactly darker, but a sadder place.

I was really hoping that this high would last me through the weekend because I’ve already made plans for the next three days that I now have to commit to, but I don’t have that same excited, freeing energy than I did yesterday. That’s pretty frustrating. Of course I’ll still show up for all my friends, make time for the people who have actually stayed in my life, and time for the person who is making their introduction to my life tomorrow, which I was extremely excited for, but now I’m not so sure.

That’s another thing about healing, and I guess, grief. It’s strange to grieve someone who isn’t dead, but who is essentially dead to you because they’re still there, but they’re not there for you. I live in the constant fear of running into them at the worst times possible: when I’m at my lowest, or when I’m at my highest and they’ll bring me back down to my lowest.

Though it’s something about that lowest point always seeming to find me, it’s that valley of despair that I often find myself camping out in. It’s become somewhat of a home to me. It reminds me of a quote from Bojack Horseman, where he mentions “fetishizing your own sadness”. I don’t think I fetishize my own sadness, but I do find some weird comfort in it, for sure.

I try to limit myself to one Bojack Horseman rewatch per year because it’s a show that I only ever watch when I’m at my absolute lowest, watching it brings me nothing but sadness and an occasional laugh. I’ve already used up my rewatch back in February, so I’m just going for memory here, but every time I watch it, I find myself relating to a different character of the show. This is now my fourth rewatch, my fifth time watching the show, and it’s unfortunate for me to report that I think this year I might be Bojack Horseman.

I don’t know why, but there is something that has drawn me so close to him in recent months. Maybe it’s because he’s voiced by Will Arnett and his voice feels somewhat like a hug in audio form no matter what he’s saying, or maybe it is what he’s saying and the words just expressed exactly how I feel every single time no matter the circumstances. I know he’s not a character. I should relate to, and I’m not saying that I’m exactly like him, but I still feel that pull, you know.

I feel like there’s some sort of poison inside me, somewhat of a venom that inhibits me from being able to feel positive emotions to their fullest extent. There’s always this worry, always this anxiety that tells me that something is gonna happen. If not now, then later down the line because of the actions that I do now. If I allow myself to fully feel this happiness in the moment, it’ll have an equal and opposite reaction in the future.

Right now, I think back to a quote that Todd said when he was having a falling-out with Bojack, he said “you can’t keep doing shitty things and then feel bad about yourself”, he also tells Bojack that “you are all the things that’s are wrong with you”.

This episode’s short monologue has always stuck with me, many of Bojack’s falling-outs with other characters have stuck with me, I’ve had a couple falling-outs in recent years that have sounded eerily similar to these. I don’t know if it’s a manifestation of me watching the show so many times that I begin to act like the characters that I spend hours consuming. In a way they almost consume me back afterwards, I feel as though I take aspects of their personalities and absorb them into myself, though I do that with most of the media that I consume not just Bojack Horseman, this isn’t exclusive to that show. The more I think about Todd and Bojack‘s relationship the more I think about my own friendships and I notice how I’ve shifted from a Todd to a Bojack. I am all the things that are wrong with myself. I am the reason of all of my problems I feel as though it’s no one else’s fault but my own.

Most recently, I’ve been really trying to put myself back out there, and it’s been a little rough on me, emotionally, mainly for the fact that I’m still holding some reservations. I’m still a little scared because I don’t wanna get hurt in the future, but I’m still a girl that likes to have fun and not much will stop me from partaking in a little flirting. It’s silly to say that I think I may have a crush. It’s such a weird feeling to have, because it’s not a feeling I’ve really felt in almost a year now. The feeling of butterflies when you’re getting to know someone new, the feeling of not knowing how long you should wait before texting back, the feeling of nervousness when you think you sent too many TikToks or Instagram reels and they haven’t responded yet.

It’s silly, but I enjoy that feeling, which is why I feel like I tend to rush — not into relationships, specifically — to talk to someone new. I think I just really enjoy getting to know people it doesn’t have to be romantic. It usually isn’t at least on my end. I saw this video a while ago saying that it’s okay to want to have romantic relationships in your life. In this era that we live in of independence and isolation, there is no substitute for romantic love. You won’t get that from a family member, a friend, or yourself, romantic love is something different. It’s something that many people desire. It’s something that I desire from time to time, and it’s something that I’m desiring right now. As corny as is to say, I want to be in a relationship, I want to feel loved. I’m just afraid that it’s something that I’ll crave so badly that I’ll start doing reckless things for it.

Sometimes when my mind wanders, I think about one of the last scenes of the show where Bojack asked Diane “Wouldn’t it be funny if this was our last conversation ever?” after six seasons of the show.

I don’t really know how to deal with adult relationships. I haven’t been an adult for long enough to fully understand them. The idea itself of knowing someone for more than a year is still quite surreal to me as I’m one of those people who tends to bounce around from city to city every couple years The longest friendship I’ve had and properly kept in touch with, hanging out regularly, has only been five years, which to me seems like a long time because it’s about 25% of my life, but in the grand scheme of things that’s really nothing. There’s are people who have had friends for decades and there are still days where I don’t think I’ll be able to live another decade. So I want to live as much as I can now, in case I won’t get a chance to in the future, it’s reasons like this why I want to experience life in the fullest and I want to experience everything that there is to possibly experience: the good, the bad, the ugly, all of it (though, mostly the good) It’s why I want to have these picturesque movie moments in my life. I want to be able to go out, I want to be able to have fun, I want to be able to feel love.

I finally feel like I’m not being tethered back anymore by past memories and emotions, as much as I can feel them creeping back up my spine, I will break free. I will grow wings.

so basically,
Healing is weird.

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