If I was dragged back in time, maybe I’d look for other things I never noticed before. Things that could make a much better impact towards my present self. But of course, I wouldn’t have come up with this hadn’t I read this book.
At first I thought this is another YA love story, given the way it looks. But no. Proof of Forever teaches us about friendship, the validated reasons why we, more often than not, lose it, and what we could’ve done to keep it.
As I grew older (and maybe, wiser), I realized that grown up friendships are complicated. I didn’t really understand what makes them so, but lately I find myself thinking about the people I used to call friends, and how come I’m not talking to them anymore. It’s almost as if I already forgot the basics on how to make friends, or maybe, life happened.
Friendships require us to be completely honest, but sometimes as much as we want to give a hundred percent honesty, some things prevent us from doing so. Maybe like Tali who couldn’t tell her friends the truth behind her much admired acquisition of Blake’s boxers, we cling on to the idea that there’s something we can still do to make it a complete reality. Or maybe we’re like Joy who chose to keep her silence because maybe she wanted her friends to remember her the way she was, and not the way she’d be when all else failed.
Though most of the time, our friends would expect us to be sensitive and fully understanding. Luce accused Tali of being self-centered and self-focused while she was whining about her problems while she didn’t notice that people around her face much bigger worries. We are expected to ask our friends what’s wrong, and offer help as best as we can, which present other kinds of challenges. Will our friends be okay if we tell them there’s nothing we can do? Will they be okay if we won’t be able to understand what they’re going through? This is most probably the reason why Zoe didn’t explain herself to Tali right away–maybe she though Tali wouldn’t understand. Maybe she thought, her friends would think she’s perverted.
But maybe it all boils down to trust. This is the primary requirement of friendship, or in any kind of relationship for that matter. We should trust that our friends would understand. We should trust that our friends would tell us all the naked truths. No matter how painful. No matter how offensive. We should trust that our friends would still accept us for who we have become. After all, it’s the meaning of true friendship. But eventually, we’d realize that focusing on these things makes us forget to live. We’d fail to notice the things that were already there, no matter how small or even how big it is. We’d lose the chance to experience how it is to love and be loved in return. We wouldn’t be able to discover ourselves and find out who we really are. We’d lose the opportunity to be the best we can be, as a person and as a friend.
But in the end, life is all about second chances. Oftentimes, fate has a funny way of giving us the opportunity to rectify the mistakes of the past. It makes us realize what we have done wrong, and maybe do something about it. And of course, it’s still up to us if we are going to take this chance, or are we bound to lose that valued friendship forever. I am not big when it comes to second chances, really, but it provides us me with the kind of peace I know I deserve.
Have you lost a friend because of the reasons mentioned above? Let’s talk about it in the comments section.
xo