The power of moving on

Updated on: April 4th, 2024

Recently, after so many recommendations by both family and people I follow on Twitter I watched the film Robot Dreams, and I must say I didn't expected to be moved by this film (to be honest I didn't even knew what to expect out of it), the character design is rather simple and the animation is fluid but not that impressive at first glance, but inside its layers there is one of the most beautiful animation films I have seen in a while! Which also adds to my stance that animation can be appealing for both adults and children if there's enough tought and love put into it.

But the reason I decided to talk about it is the central theme of the film, here we can see the conection between Dog, the main character and Robot who gets after feeling lonely, we can see the relationship between both of them born and even if Robot does some things that makes Dog seem a bit upset, we can see him truly caring about Robot.

Now I'm going to spoil things a bit on this section, but to summarize everything the climax of the story gets Dog in a situation where he wants to help Dog to get unstuck, but is unable to. Leaving him heartbroken and marking in the calendar to return for him on a later date. The film isn't very subtle about it but sometimes we see ourselves wanting to help people the same way but being unable to do so for a variety of reasons, being trauma, mental health issues, etc.

And the film goes around with Dog moving on after realizing that Robot isn't anywhere to be found anymore.

The reason it really struck me was because I was in a similar situation recently, where I met a person that made me feel understood and seen, going as far as to make me consider my closest friend, because even if we lived too far apart (I'm in Mexico and this person in Brazil) there were so many connections that we created, it was a meaningful relationship for me. And everything went to the point to deciding to meet in a trip we both had planned in Europe, and just as Dog I started noticing several things that made me upset, but wasn't enough of a problem for me, at least in my case.

On the other hand during all this time together I was starting to feel like this person was looking for red flags within me, if I had severe anxiety problems (I DO know I'm anxious but not to a crippling extent), if I had autism, if I was narcissistic, had BPD, etc. Which led me to believe if they were looking really hard for a reason to break the friendship, which in more than two times it was close to happen.

At the end we parted ways, with the possibility to see each other again in Brazil, and as I returned to Mexico I had the goal to work on myself to be able to travel again, they also invited me to form part of a proyect with their family to volunteer in Brazil, which made me feel really happy! But now I just ask myself, for what reason?

After this it just seemed that the connection we once had started to degrade, not talking as often as before, and the small chances we had to talk there was some hostility on their side. Everything came to the point where I wanted to open up and talk about how this made me feel, to the conclusion that they asked me to stop messaging them anymore.

So here we are, this is the point where I realize that trying to help someone that is stuck is not the best, and after some time since the last message (I think it was about 2 months ago) I come to the realization that the best thing to do is just to move on even when it hurts so much, and with the help of my therapist managing the grief is just a bit easier. 

Because when a door closes several more opens, I do realize how better is to stick with the people that makes me feel confortable and loved, because at the end of the day it's the better way to grow.

tl;dr Watch Robot Dreams, it's a beautiful movie that came at the right moment in my life.