Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Would you erase me?



I finally saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Sven was right--I loved it. I would watch it again right now but I'm so tired. Why am I always so tired lately? I don't understand. But bed is coming sooner than I'd like it to.

I thought about creating a thread on blue beta about what memories you'd erase if you could. But the whole point of the movie is that memories are important--I'm not so tired as to miss that. Part of me desparately wants to be Clementine or Joel or a combination. Part of me desparately wants to be myself. I wonder how much of myself I've put away this past semester, along with memories that I thought were about pain and disappointment and embarrassment. I don't like to appear foolish or wrong or whatever. I can't imagine that anyone does. But would I discard those experiences, those memories? No. Because, as someone pointed out to me today, I have been successful because I look at both the past and the future. I have been successful, but I have also been lonely and, well, paranoid. I don't think that's too strong a word.

Things are going well right now. Too well. I'm waiting for everything to fall apart. Waiting to realize that everyone hates me or my hair is falling out or my car is wrecked or something has gone terribly wrong. I anticipate these things so that I know how to handle them when they happen. They never do--life manages to find things that I haven't thought of before to throw in my way.

This thread isn't going the direction I planned. I wanted to write about those memories that define me, those memories that put me together. And that, given the chance, I might be tempted to erase.

3 comments:

ambrosia ananas said...

I know at least one that I would erase. It's probably a good thing I'm not allowed to. Really, I learned a lot from it. But that doesn't make it any less painful, even now.

Tolkien Boy said...

Don't worry too much. Maybe things will just get better and better. And I would erase all of 2005, which would be a tragedy because of all the wonderful people I've met.

Anonymous said...

You know, I'd kind of be happy if all of my hair fell out. That's an interesting question. What memories would I erase? What memories are me? I've actually never thought about memories as something that defines me. My Dad once told me that the word "remember" was the most important word in the English language. Hmmm. That all goes somewhere...I'll let it marinate

 

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