Okay. Okay.

As part of an informal Valentine tradition I started years ago, I just finished watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for the nth time. This movie is faultless.

CLEMENTINE

I'm not a concept, Joel. I'm just a fucked-up girl who is looking for my own peace of mind. I'm not perfect.

JOEL

I can't think of anything I don't like about you right now.

CLEMENTINE

But you will. You will think of things. And I'll get bored with you and feel trapped because that's what happens with me.

JOEL

Okay.

CLEMENTINE

Okay.

Clementine and Joel have made Okay their Always since 2004. 

A quick keyword search through this blog will show that there aren't any other works of fiction I talk or write about more than this movie, How I Met Your Mother, and the Before trilogy. Every re-watching is a new experience because I'm a different person each time. I've been feeling a little jaded lately and, well, it's not a good feeling to have and I'm hoping to come out of this funk soon.

Have you seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? Since you are still reading this I'm assuming you have. If you haven't yet, come on, the movie came out more than ten years ago. Get on it! 

I asked because I wanted to talk about its alternate ending. They say that a very early draft of the script shows Clementine, at an old age, waiting to get the treatment again. It was never filmed. Thank God! Can you imagine how exhausting that would be? Meeting someone, getting together, hitting relationship roadblocks, giving up, hurting so much to the point that you want all memories of them literally erased from your brain, and then doing everything all over again? Can you? Because I don't think I can.

Suspending disbelief for a moment and imagining Lacuna Inc. were real and erasing someone from your memory were possible, would you take that chance for a clean break and start fresh? 

Sounds ideal if you just came from a heartbreak, but even if I were, I don't think I can do it. I wrote a post about this before asking the same question and almost five years later, my answer is still the same:

Some memories may be better best forgotten, but some, some are worthy to be kept going back to, if only to remember how happy we were once, and how capable of love we can be.

source

Hugs, kisses, dreams, and conversation with someone I love - these are the things I live for, and if my heart needs to get broken a lot of times before I find my person, before I go "Hey, this is it, this is home," then so be it.

Errr, kidding about that bit about breaking my heart lots of times more. She has been broken and repaired enough, thankyouverymuch. LOL.

The problem with traditional movies is they usually have to have it one way or the other: happy or sad. For those people who need it, we have a happy ending, but for people who want to look deeper, the movie is saying, yes, love is real, but the road to it is complicated and you're going to make terrible messes along the way and you need to go on anyway.

- Charlie Kaufman

What can I say, pondering these things while on my long commutes to and from work has made me very wise, heh. I love this movie so much and I wish you have a movie or book or TV show you love or can relate to as much. Happy Valentine's Day! Be loved. ❤