Happily (hah!) my mind will never be spotless...
10 October, 2004 :: 12:32 a.m.
I remember when this all started...I remember the excitement I felt at adding entries, at how every thought I had felt like I needed to run to the computer so I could put it down before I forgot it...and now it's become this place I come once in a while and maybe the entries have always been boring and monotonous, but now they feel that way, they didn't when it all began...
It all began because of you and it always comes back to you...you, my greatest triumph and my biggest failure...all wrapped up in one neat little package.
I finally got to watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and it is every bit as beautiful and deserving of praise as I had heard and hoped it would be. I've owned the damn thing for over a week now, but today was the first day Lacey and I could sit down and watch it together...the closest it ever got when it was in theaters was Ithaca which is a 2 hour drive and I had neither the time nor ambition to drive that far for a movie...but now I own it and I'm glad...
So of course it got me thinking about relationships and whether I would erase people if I could...and of course I wouldn't...you can't and you shouldn't.
But yeah, it all comes back to you, doesn't it Char? 3 years...I don't know who you are or how you are now...but I didn't like you the last few times we bumped into each other...I still wouldn't wipe you out of my mind though...I dated Emily for a little over a year...in fairness to her, I was never in it like I should've been because my mind was still on you for way too much of it, but while she has great qualities, I don't think things would've worked between us regardless...and now I've been dating Lacey for something like 18 or 19 months and still the idea of being with someone for three years seems so far away from ever being possible for me again. That's why I say that my being part of US is my greatest triumph and you can't very well be my greatest triumph and things not have worked out unless you are also my greatest failure...not you yourself, obviously, but my part of US.
I wouldn't erase you; I'm glad you're still here inside me, part of me; I wish like hell I could erase you or at least stop visiting you; I love the fact that you're there and I can revisit you anytime I wish...yeah, all of that is there in my head and apparently is in no danger of going away anytime soon...
Honestly whether you believe it or whether anyone else believes it or not doesn't matter, but the fact is, I go days without thinking about you and most times that I do, it's in the context of talking about relationships with Pat or Chuck and using something that happened between us as an example of what I'm talking about and there really isn't any emotional impact...your name is just one more word coming out of my mouth, nothing more. But there are times like this where I wish I knew what you were up to, I wish we hadn't changed so much that we couldn't at least occasionally talk and update each other on life...not that there's really a lot going on in my life lately, but you know what I mean...I write this as if I'm talking to you even though I have no reason to believe you will ever read this. I'm not hung up on you and I'm being honest with myself when I say that. I can let myself do this and float back and remember you and my feelings for you, but I can just let it go now...that was the part I couldn't do for so long after we ended. I can call you up and feel it all and that's why I'd never erase you...that's part of it anyway...
To erase someone from your mind...there's no way you could do it without altering who you are and even if I wish I was someone different most of the time, I wouldn't just wipe out people and memories that hurt me...and then part of me would...but only if you could back up everything in your mind like you can a computer...then it might be fun to wipe it clean and see how you react to life without any of the hurt or bad things you've been through...but you'd have to be able to reboot your old files again and remember the experience of what it was like without all of that to truly appreciate it...
I still have apple orchards in my head and I still don't know what it means...I have visions of a lot of other things that recur as well, and I don't know what any of them mean...it's not thought, it's just a mental image that takes over my brain for a few seconds here and there and then it's gone leaving me to wonder what the hell it was all about...I'm going to watch the movie again...and maybe About a Boy afterwards because I'm listening to the Badly Drawn Boy cd that Erin sent me and watching the movie makes me want to listen to him and listening to him makes me want to watch the movie...my favorite scene being where Will realizes that he has no real personality or anything to offer anyone...because I can totally relate.