Let me tell you the story about the call that changed my destiny.
References to The Backstreet Boys ended in the line above.
I've been living a life of sobriety for a while now. More than a week without any weed. It's more about the fact that I ran out and felt too lazy to go get some and used it as an excuse to not smoke up. But it's a win-win so who cares right. Life is nice. I have people I can count on at work. Those that look out for the best in me. They're good people. They're nice. I don't think about the things that make me sad. I try. I don't think about you. I mean, hey, technically I am always reminding myself that. It's the thought that counts.
"Hey, how are you? Why don't you pick up my calls?" "I didn't get any of your calls. What do you want? Talking to you is really difficult."
"I miss you Ashmit."
"What do you want? "
"I want to talk to you. There are so many things I want to say to you."
"What is it? Why would you call me after not talking to me for so long?" "I sent you so many messages. I called you so many times." "You sent me one message. You called not once." "I sent you three messages. I called you Ashmit. It first kept ringing until it said that the person I wanted to talk to wouldn't answer my call, and then a woman said that in Bengali again."
"You sent me one message. Something about how everyone around me is getting married. Did not call once. Are you sober?"
"Ofcourse not. I'm kinda drunk. I'm on a bus in Guindy Station."
"What are you doing drunk on a bus at Guindy station?"
"Going back home."
"What do you want?"
"I miss you Ashmit. You won't end up as Bojack. I won't let it happen. Did you see the last two episodes? I love you Ashmit. I'm sorry you're the one that got away. Come back home. Even if it's for a day. I miss you. I'll make you food. You know I was making Mutton Kosha today and removing most of the paanch-phoron until I asked myself why I was even doing that given that you weren't even there"
"I'd believe you if you told me any of this in the morning when you were sober."
"Okay I promise I shall call you up tomorrow to repeat myself. I hate that I have to go back to life tomorrow. I have to go to work at 11. Shit, I have work at 11. Hey can you remind me to wake up to go to work at 11? Do you not want me to call you?" "No. I'm glad you did. I miss talking to you. This is nice."
Okay, maybe that last part includes a bit of paraphrasing because you obviously would not have framed your sentences that well. We'll just ignore the fact that these words are now etched into my brain because that does not help my case, but then and I mean, you're drunk; you're drunk so you don't notice the fact that I'm already hungover.
Hungover? I remember being sober right. high; is it you?
Moving on is hard. Talking to the person you want to move on from while you're moving on is harder. Not talking to them the next day after they're done calling is something I know not of.
And if these are the rules of your universe, what do you say when they ask if you want them to stay away?
I mean this is probably the guy being called in Lips of an Angel for all you know. Who am I kidding? This IS the guy being called in Lips of an Angel.
Honey, why are you calling me so late? It's kinda hard to talk right now Honey, why are you crying, is everything okay? I gotta whisper 'cause I can't be too loud. Well, my girl's in the next room Sometimes I wish she was you I guess we never really moved on
Do you feel your heart beating? It's heaving. You don't know how that makes you feel. It's like that feeling where you hold your arms to your side really tight for a while and then let loose, making them rise up in the air like they're free. They know they gotta come back down right? What do you do about it? You know it's gonna go away right? Not the heaviness in your heart but the very happiness of talking to someone that makes it go away?
It's funny that you're calling me tonight And, yes, I've dreamt of you too And does he know you're talking to me Will it start a fight No I don't think she has a clue
You don't care. You give anything to be talking to them. It doesn't matter if it's in the dead of the night. You don't care if it doesn't see the light of day. This was meaning felt like. You don't care that you remember Bojack asking Diane if he was a good person. Why did you leave? Why did you move? Should you have stayed? Why don't you tell her how you feel? She's saying everything you want to say back to her. Is this real? Well, you're too hungover to realize that the voice on the other side is drunk. The person on the other side at the moment truly is the one you know. But hey, don't you see? That person on the other side goes into hiding when day breaks; when life starts again. We live our lives wearing different masks in front of different people because it's easier than showing our bare naked scarred selves to them and hope we won't be judged for all that shitty things people might think we are, or we may have been or done in the past. It truly is easier to be liked for something people think you may be than be hated for something you may or may not. The world never cared for understanding you. The world only cares if you make the "right" choices.
"Hey, you sober now? "
"Yeah I guess so"
"Do you remember what you said last night?"
"Yes"
"Do you still feel the same?"
...
..
.
Hello darkness. You're the only companion I've always had. I know not to run away from you. You stay with me in my shadow. It's okay that you're here. No one in the world has to know. The trick is to always smile.
You're many things. One of them is Diane. And hey, this is Life, as Bojack. Or what is the end of it right?
D:"I think there are people that help you become the person you end up being and you can be grateful for them even if they were never meant to be in your life forever"
B:"Life's a bitch and then you die, right? " D:"Sometimes; Sometimes, life is a bitch, and then you keep living." B:"Yeah" D:"But it's a nice night isn't it?" B:"Yeah. This is nice."
That's it, right? Bojack is the story of how a man meets this woman who goes by the name of Diane and changes forever. She eventually leaves because life calls for it, and it's not her fault her spoken-for life suddenly moved out and into another orbit for a while. She was just in town to do a job right? It involved getting to know someone who seemed like he had perhaps some sort of story in him to weave a book out of. Or perhaps a story to tell her kids when she was older. And that's what I shall always be affected by. A ripple in space that crosses time to reach me, changing my life every single time. I shall spend my infinities in the finite moments I have with you every time I find them.
And perhaps that is the story of Bojack. A man finds redemption from his mostly solitary life in the form of a woman who only wandered in through his doors in an effort to be nice, but found she understood more about a dysfunctional washed up misery of an adult than she did about the world of her own rules that she found herself living in.
But he's Bojack. The sad part is not that he ends up paying for the consequences. Not that he gets caught for the breaking and entering, or for any of the things he listed down. In the end, it doesn't really matter. He's paying for it. He always has. He always will. Retribution will always find its way to him. The sad part is he will never find his redemption because that is the true cost of all that he has done, and it is the one thing he will never deserve.
She'll always care; she just won't have the time for him because her life has moved on.
She'll always be glad she knew Bojack, and Mr. Peanutbutter, and everything that constructed the world she once lived in. But life moves on, like Diane moved to Boston.
Sometime's life's a bitch, and then you keep living.
I shall keep living. I'll keep looking for redemption. You can keep looking for the small things that bring joy. Maybe I'll find retribution. You certainly believe in finding things you believe in. Why does that always take you farther away from me? Maybe I'll find my redemption. Maybe I won't. I just know I won't meet another you. Not a Diane, not PC, not any of the women you hate me for comparing you to. The retribution that was my sunshine, that I shall never see again. In the end, the story, like Mr. Peanutbutter says, was about me. I am my own undoing. Why would you wear rose-colored glasses if you could just undergo surgery to fix your eyes and never use glasses again? It's just, easier, right? In a world where you complicate everything you touch, a life without you is just simpler, no matter how many things people miss out on by not having you in it. How could I keep something that was never mine -- something I got before I deserved and then laid waste to?
I have a cosmic theory where I think that the universe is not governed by the balance of yin and yang, but by the many rippled structure that is our galaxy, the Milky Way. Our beings are governed by the arms that happen to be the galaxy. Our actions cause ripples in space-time, ones that affect all other arms or aspects, that go on to cause their own ripples, starting a chain that changes us forever, for good or for bad. I mean for heaven's sake look at a picture of the galaxy you live in. You're telling me all your stories of karma cannot be best explained by the basic diagram of the galaxy you occupy your fundamentally meaningless existence in?
I shall carry on, living in this perpetual spiral trying my best not to hurt the things I touch. To my Diane, my Circle, my Sunshine, I promise I will be what I need to be. I'll be every shade of maroon so that someone with rose-colored glasses can see life with me in true technicolor. Do you know how beautiful you looked with those glasses resting on your cheeks?
Sometimes, life's a bitch; and then you keep living.
Let this life continue. Bojack can just be my favorite love story.
But my Diane, I ask you this. You may walk with your shadow, talk to your echo; where is the one you love? Where is company?
Comments