I was going to start this last night because I was so inspired, but it was too late for that to be justified. On a whim I decided to watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind again, a movie I haven't watched since high school. Something about my current circumstance probably spurred me into this. Anyways, epic movie. If you haven't seen it, here's the gist:
Two people named Joel and Clementine meet at a party and fall in love. (This is sort of not the way it goes, because the movie starts at the end and skips around a lot.) So Joel is quiet, Clementine quirky, and their relationship is full of crazy fun moments, and love abundant. But somewhere along the line, things start to become mundane. They start fighting, and picking out all the things they don't like about each other. They become "one of those boring couples you feel sorry for at restaurants." And one night, after angry words are said, Clementine leaves Joel, and decides to erase him from her memory. Yes. There is a doctors office that erases painful memories.
When Joel finds out what she's done, he's heartbroken, and asks to have the same procedure done to himself. He brings everything that reminds him even slightly of Clementine to the doctor, and they trace his memories of her from the most recent, back until the day they meet.
That night, as the procedure begins, Joel starts to see back into the days when love was prevalent over anger, back into the memories he treasures with Clementine. As she starts to disappear, he realizes that his love for her goes deeper than anything that could bother him about her, that his life is complete with her. In a sense, he falls in love with her all over again, and wants to stop getting erased. In the end, when he knows he's about to lose the memory of her forever, he know that he wishes he could do things differently.
And they somehow find each other in the end, find out what happened. And even knowing that they'll come to find things about each other that they can't stand, they are still in love, and choose to accept that to be together.
I cried at the end, because of several things. One is that I've done that. I've been the one to lose sight of love and instead start focusing on all the bad things. Another is that I feel like it's inevitable in a way, because we're all imperfect human beings. We're bound to find things in our significant others that we don't like. So what do we do with that? I love how this is addressed in the movie, because I think that is what true love is. The kind of love that doesn't end in divorce or heart break. It's getting the shock of finding out the person you love isn't going to always be what you want, but learning to just let the good overcome the bad. It's knowing that you'll always have those good things to fall back on, and maybe all we need is a little push down memory lane to get fresh perspective.
Despite how much they hurt each other, love overcame it all. Despite falling into a pattern of just going through the motions of life, they came out together and on top. The first time you see all of these things happen is the hardest. It's the big hurdle you have to get over to have a much easier time the rest of the race. I don't think I can do this without God's help, and I know I'll fail more than once more, but it's still a hopeful thought.
Hope is what I need right now, and I'm finding it little by little, in the oddest places. Like watching that movie. I feel like things are moving forward, looking up, getting better. I just need a lot of wisdom and a fair amount of patience. But I know I can love again, and that things can get better. There's always hope, and nothing is too big for God. Nothing at all.
