Cafe Hitch-hike

2004-10-24

Erasure

If you had a chance to erase an unpleasant memory or two, what would they be? I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and could quickly think of a thing or two.

Oh, let's see... I'd erase memories of my Darling, Disturbed D* from 4 years ago... I'd erase quite a few memories of my mother and her antics... I'd like to erase memories of my internship.... Maybe a couple memories (but not all of them) of former beau Jorge Posada (not the actual catcher for the New York Yankees, but a nickname my roommate gave to this guy).

Even while watching the movie, I thought it's believeable for the mental map of neurons charting memories can be dissolved, but wait a minute-- What about the emotions? What about the way it moved you that thinking just couldn't contain or explain?

(I won't give the ending or other bits of the story, but...)

What happens if you forget something but you had a notion of it? Most people really think and think and try to remember what was forgotten because an inkling of a notion came to them.

Just my luck, I'd be even more hell-bent on rediscovering the erased emotions. Hahaha, I'd probably find myself in EL town, where I went to college, tracking down Jorge Posada. I'd probably be hitch-hiking to New York and Vermont with a vague notion that my forgotten memory has something to do with these locales (yeah, D* was from NY and now resides in some tree in freezing-fucking-cold Vermont).

I'm obsessive enough to probably pull such stunts, too. That's me, can't leave well enough sometimes. A truth-seeker, if you will.

I would be kicking and screaming, too, to keep the memories. As mixed as these experiences were, they meant everything to me at some point. My heart was broken at some point in each of those scenarios, but there was something that just needed to be kept in my memory.

I felt immense passion for D*, and also with Jorge Posada. Both experiences had beautiful, moving moments that many don't get to experience at all. As for my mother, she has struggled with her darker side for a very long time, and everyone has an Achilles Heel. And with the internship, I guess all I can do is live and learn.

It's just that sometimes the residue of the experiences can be so heavy, like the melted wax remaining of a burning candle. The grief eclipses the joy that was had. It feels like there was so much more grief than joy, and I wonder why there was so much more afterwards. It's so easy to wish everything was gone from my mind and erased.

I probably would get the erasure done out of desperation. Then, I would scramble trying to recapture those memories.

As they say, who doesn't know what they've got until it's gone?

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