After thirteen years, one of my favorite anime finally received a third season which released not too long ago and it has been surprisingly painful to watch at no fault of its own.
Kimi ni Todoke (From Me to You) revolves around a girl who slowly and, more importantly, realistically breaks free of her solitude and finds friendship and such. A lot of shows have a story like this, but they usually happen through a series of contrivances to help speed things along. This typically backfires, because having the opportunity to heroically rescue the person you have a crush on from kidnappers or suddenly befriending the richest person in the school who spends their money helping you with your love life is kind of sort of a tad bit... fucking stupid. Still, this isn't really something I would normally have enjoyed except I watched this back in 2009 when my life was gradually playing out in a similar manner. I moved to new state, found my first job, finished up college, actually began spending time with a part of my family I seldom ever met throughout my childhood, and even dated one of those people who seemed like the ideal partner. You probably know what I mean. They always seem to know what you're saying when others don't and will commonly behave in a manner that leads you to believe they are reading your thoughts. I was able to watch this show and root for the girl as if we were improving our life situations simultaneously. Then, the second season ended in 2011 and her world came to a halt. Mine did not. The recession in the following years resulted in my job losing hours and benefits which made it unbearable to continue doing. The other half of my family tree I moved out to be around turned out to be as bad (and in some ways worse) as the family I moved away from while the only two I kept in contact with passed away from medical complications with one losing his life at the start of this very year. I moved away for a new job and am now pouring my life savings into a dilapidated home I was forced to purchase because renting a home is twice as expensive and it was the only house in my price range that didn't look like it belonged in a horror film. As for the relationship, it ended with one of those rare moments of misinterpretation and both of us were just too embarrassed and insecure of ourselves to talk it out properly. That will likely continue to be one of my biggest regrets for the remainder of my life. After all of this, the incredibly long wait was over. The anime finally aired it's third season on Netflix and I assumed it was going to be one of the only highlights of this otherwise-awful year. The problem was that there was now a juxtaposition between this character's life and mine yet that realization didn't hit me until midway into the first new episode. In an effort to recall all that had happened before the decade-long hiatus, my terrible habit of mentally dredging up far more than necessary suddenly overwhelmed me with emotion. I'm not the type to dwell in nostalgia because I don't like thinking about my past. For that matter, I already waste too much time worrying about my future. Still, I was just so focused on remembering what had happened to better situate myself for the season that I dove right into my mind and climbed out soaking wet in misery. Spent the last two days not sleeping properly because of it, too. I'll be fine soon enough, but I currently hate myself so much and I can't wait for this feeling to subside. I'm assuming things will turn around eventually, but I figured I would leave this here as reminder to myself to continue looking forward (but not too forward), because, apparently, even something as seemingly harmless as the return of an old favorite still comes with the risk of temporary self-loathing if I'm not cautious. I don't know. Maybe I should just stick to remembering my past through video games alone.
