Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

Part 1 of 2: The Meaning Of The Movie
It took awhile to write this first part so why not combine both? It all fits together. I didn't mean for it to, but funny how life works out sometimes.

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd
- Alexander Pope: Elosia to Abelard
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Last Saturday night ended up being stuffed pizza, alcohol, and three rented movies with a friend. She held up the DVD of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and I had vague recollections of hearing about this little indie film that was supposed to be fantastic. It was. Eternal Sunshine has Jim Carrey (Joel), Kate Winslet (Clementine), Kirsten Dunst, & Elijah Wood among others. This is one of the reasons I love quirky indie films, you can have big time stars in a cheap film because they care about their craft. These are the films that tell stories, have depth, and make you truly think about things.

I'll get this out of the way: Jim Carrey CAN ACT! As an over-the-top comedy star I don't care for him, but as a dramatic actor he is amazing. Supposedly the best dramatic actors were once comedians. Maybe they're right.

I'll tell you enough to pique your interest in the movie, but I won't spill the beans and ruin it for those who haven't seen it. Joel and Clementine break up leaving Joel in agony. He discovers that Clementine has undergone a medical procedure that selectively erases her memories of Joel and their relationship. To get over the pain, she erased him. Joel decides to undergo the same procedure to erase Clementine. As the memories are erased one by one Joel realizes the good memories of their love that comes with the bad memories of their problems are intertwined.

What you are now is the summation of all your previous experiences. I feel this was one of the points the movie was expressing. Strangely enough I had been thinking such thoughts before seeing the movie. Our past makes us who we are now. To erase part of the past is to change who we are now. The missing foundational bricks can't hold up the walls of personality. Much pain has been in my life, yet it serves a purpose. Knowing of the pain I can enjoy the pleasure that much more. Sometimes pain and joy are intertwined. Sometimes the pain forces me to grow and learn. Though not a pleasant experience sometimes you have to go through hell to grow into something more. Though sometimes you hold onto the pain and never get past it. That isn't so good. It clouds your worldview and you don't see things as they truly are. That isn't growth. I try to grow even when others don't, really I do.

It would be wrong to selectively erase past pain. The joy of the spotless mind and eternal sunshine couldn't be appreciated in that context without knowing the scarred mind and twilight. I try not to let the past scars overwhelm me and control my present. I try to find the good memories that come with the bad ones. Usually I succeed. The price for eternal sunshine is that we wouldn't be who we are, and that price is too high I feel. At least for me.

Part 2 of 2: The Meaning Of The Reality

This is a very special picture. It is the only photo I have of Elizabeth or Liz as she liked to be called. It is even more special to me as this singular photo is also a photo of us together. It proves we existed.

Today is the anniversary of the photo, the Saturday after Thanksgiving at the high school football state championships. Given the number of years since this photo how is Liz still a part of my life, especially since we were in and out of each other's lives for only 17 months? We are the summation of our past experiences, the past is the foundation of our present. When I found my memory book a few weeks ago this was in it. Liz has been in my thoughts lately for reasons you'll know soon.

A friend, who was a drummer, had moved up to Carmel and our normally competitive bands had bonded over that season over the mutual hate of another band. I found myself heading up to Carmel a bit, and somehow meet Liz. I have no idea how, but the flag section adopted me. Maybe it was the hair? Liz, Mindy, Kim, and the other flags could understand if I wanted to hang out with the tubas, but they made sure I went nowhere near the rifles and dance corp. You're our's Brian! I didn't have a problem with that.

Liz and I never seemed to go out by ourselves, we were always with a group of friends doing something whether it was a birthday party, a basketball game, a school play, or simply hanging out a Mindy's. Yet in the quiet corner of the living room while others watch a movie, when others left the table at Pizza Hut to go to the bathroom and left Liz and I together, when I gave her a ride to her home, when I sat next to her in the stands at the championship game helping cheer on her team, when we talked on the phone, when we wrote letters to each other (pre-internet age folks), it was so obvious we liked each other even if we were not sure what to do about it. The holding of fingers and the tender good night kiss we could figure out. Beyond that... (teenage behavior! *chuckles* how quaint!) I think part of the problem was the distance involved. The west side to Carmel isn't that far a distance now, but when you're 17 and your parents worry constantly when you're on the road, especially on the interstate, that 35-40 minute drive was a long haul. Amazing how big the city seemed when you're 17. It didn't help that I had just broken up with my girlfriend and wasn't quite ready to give my heart to another woman, no matter how fantastic she was.

The spring semester had fewer trips up north. I had my own basketball games to play pep band at, getting ready for college, speech meets, and trying to figure out which ex-GF I wanted to get back together with (I had my own Beverly Hills, 90210 going on before the show was on the air!) Yet every time I called, I heard Liz's smile on the other end. Upon further review I should have asked Liz to the prom instead of Cabbagehead. I lost track of the Carmel group before going to college. Some were still in high school, others were supposed to go to college. I was an hour northwest having the time of my life as long as you didn't count classes.

During Winter Break I decided it was time to renew old friendships by calling Mindy, Kim, and Liz. I could hear Liz's smile through the phone. She was incredibly excited to hear from me. She gave me the phone number to her apartment as she was just visiting her parents when I called. I didn't think it odd that she wasn't going to Vincennes or USI as she had been accepted. Due to her job and our Christmas schedules it took a few phone calls to finally decide to meet on New Years Eve at her place. Now being a sophisticated college guy I was determined to have a proper meeting with Liz. I had procured the most horrific grape refuge that had the audacity to call itself wine in known existence! Two bottles for $5 no less!

The door opened and Liz's smile was in full force. It was around 7 or 8 months since we had seen each other and we hugged each other then ran our hands through each other's hair. We had both cut our hair to be just below the ears! We talked, we drank the 'wine' and simply caught up. She told me about her job and I told her about school and the band. As the bottle emptied we created a new game, tickle-wrestlemania! From the title alone you can figure out the rules. I don't care how competitive a guy you are, you will WANT to lose this game! She pinned me to the carpet, but I had her hands as we stopped and looked forever into each other's eyes. I can only describe the resulting kiss like this. Imagine your souls passing through each other and becoming one. Imagine that if you died right at that moment, you wouldn't care. Up to that moment in time it was the best night of my life, and we didn't even sleep with each other. What am I talking about, up to this moment in time it is still one of the best nights of my life!

Joel and Clementime couldn't deal with the pain of their failed relationship. They wanted it to end so badly they had the memories of their pain and love erased. They wanted their eternal sunshine on a tabula rosa. Yet to feel love without the reference of pain is pointless. You can not know the true heights you are at, if you don't remember the true depths you have been to. If given the choice of wiping some of my memories away so that I wouldn't feel the pain, how can I erase tickle-wrestlemania? How could I erase the way she whispered Alexandria, her middle name, to me as it were her precious secret to have all of her? How could I erase our gasping at that crappy bottle of wine as we willingly consumed it? How could I erase our giggling in Mindy's living room as we watched Spaceballs? How could I erase the backrubs we gave each other on the apartment floor or at Mindy's house? How could I erase watching the state championship next to her as a friend, likely Mindy or Kim, took the one photo of Liz that I have? A photo that has both of us all these years later. These memories are so precious in part because of what happened in the end. It is nearly 3am, we kiss, touch the other's cheek, hold hands, then let the door close between us. That early New Year's morning was the last time I saw Liz.

I was determined to treat Liz right, but we couldn't swing another night out before I left for the start of the new semester. She was so tired, yet manic, on that final phone call. I didn't understand how she could be so confused. How could an almost perfect night result in this? My shag-a-new-chick-every-weekend roommate had no idea what to do with me as I moped in our dorm room. Then the phone number was disconnected. Mindy was busy with her own classes and part time job. She had no idea what was going on with Liz. I was stuck an hour away without a car and totally unable to do anything. All lines of communication were cut and I couldn't get to Indy. I just gave up as I didn't know what else to do.

The spring semester ended and I was back in town. I hadn't talked with Mindy in awhile so I called her to catch up on things and see if she wanted to go out sometime. From her tone I knew something was horribly wrong. Mindy apologized for forgetting to call me when it happened. They had said that I should be told, but in all rush that detail simply didn't get done. Liz had died a few days earlier. They had her funeral a few days earlier. Liz was gone and I didn't get a chance to say good bye.

Officially it was car accident. Liz drove off the road and hit a large tree. The passenger, another flag friend of Mindy, Kim and Liz, required a few stitches and was very sore, but otherwise okay because of the seatbelt. Liz wasn't that lucky. The real story was Liz taking off her seatbelt, suddenly grabbing her friend's hand, and saying "I'm sorry" as the tree approached. From Liz's friends and family Mindy had figured out what happened and told me. Liz had been suffering from depression for a very long time. This explained many things that I know about and many others that I didn't know about. Liz's sudden decision to not go to college, why she suddenly quit the job she was working and picked up a pizza delivery job, why she withdrew from almost all of her old friends, why she suddenly moved back in with her parents, why she suddenly picked up smoking, and other things. Liz was on some medication, but had stopped taking it at some point in time. We guessed that Liz was taking her meds around the Christmas break that I saw her, but quit soon after that time. We'll never truly know though.

We often discuss the good things that inspire us, but sometimes other things inspire people. For some time now Liz has been inspiring me, but in a way that she should never have inspired anyone. Liz has inspired me to not let my depression get anywhere so bad as her's. Just because I don't have daily postings on it doesn't mean that I'm not still suffering from depression. It is odd that I get more help from the ghost of memories past than I do from many living people around me. It has been proven to me that so many of you simply can't handle it. Some days are easier than others. Some days are far more difficult than others. I have no idea if my own mental energy helps me or not, but I refuse to see my life as so bad that I would want to drive myself into a tree. Liz's pain and passing inspire me to live and to fight. If those pain filled memories of Liz's leaving were erased, what would I have to inspire me? It is a perverse value system, but the scarred mind and the dark twilight can be just as inspiring as eternal sunshine on a spotless mind, at least in some circumstances.

Yet here is the one thing I didn't count on, by remembering the pain of her death I also remember the joy she brought into my life. It was an imperfect love, but an inspiring one. The way love should always be. We were 5 or 10 years too young to know how to deal with the emotions we had for each other. Because of her I want to experience such inspiration again. I don't know when that will be, but I can wait. Unlike Liz I am nowhere near ready to surrender my life just yet. I may be the resident old wise man, but there is still too much potential to give up on. Her surrender reminds me to never retreat. To borrow an idea from Tennyson, I will strive, I will seek, and I will not yield.

One day I hope to have a daughter just so I can try to incorporate Elizabeth or Alexandria into her name. Thank you Liz. Good bye love.