Tag Archives: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Walk away

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My daughter finally learned how to bike. She biked until evening here, against the beautiful sunset. Thank God for my children whom I love dearly and who still love me. Photo by CallMeCreation.com #nofilter

Because what my friend sent me yesterday opened up fresh wounds, I spent a huge chunk of my day Googling, “What if your partner rejects your children from previous relationship?”

Oh boy, a lot of, let’s say, eye opening responses to that Quora question. The gist: It’s the children who always lose. Walk away if your partner does not accept that you are a package deal.

This is the reason why he said he is dumping me. He could not accept that we are a package deal and he explicitly said so in my face.

It took me two months before I tried dissecting this. There are still several missing pieces that I need to solve like me being a sugar mommy, and being lied to (why he went back to the US twice leaving me hanging, and when I caught his phone had accessed the inside of his ex-gf’s Facebook account–yes he was logged in on her account and I could not be mistaken because I wrote it down on my journal that day. He fibbed and because I was blind, I accepted his feeble excuse that I could no longer remember but I remember it was bullshit).

But I digress.

I needed to understand and nobody could explain to me the psychology behind such rejection. Desperate for answers so I can finally blot him out, I went to Google as my last resort.

I came across this response:

I don’t have kids.. So I’m going to assume that as a good father/man you would put your child/s before me at any given moment. GREAT fathers would agree. Being that I don’t have kids, I just can’t get with that. I admire you for being such a great dad but I do not like that I come 2nd, 3rd, or 4th. Only because in my world, you’d be #1 as the King you should be, so why should I have to settle? I want my kid/s to be your kid/s. From 1st to last child. I want a marriage. I want a family. I want unity!

Keyshia Bby

I guess that’s how he rolls too.

How do I get closure from this rejection of children thing? This response gave me the answer. It’s too long to post here but this basically says he has to love them as his own and I guess I am not enough for him to love me wholly, package and all.

So we go back to what my friend sent me yesterday, that Instagram post about letting them leave if they want to go. Yes, there’s no point of him staying and being in my life when he cannot even love me and has in fact rejected me. He doesn’t even know what he wants. I was just an interim thing, a panakip-butas (void filler).

Too many guys think I’m a concept, or I complete them, or I’m gonna make them alive. But I’m just a fucked-up girl who’s looking for my own peace of mind; don’t assign me yours.

Clementine Kruczynski, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Accept the impermanence

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Just a brief stop before the Special Services Brigade came to call me out and told me not to linger. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I got this from a Youtube video, paraphrased:

Love is not just about the person. It is about the shared time, space, and memories of two people meshed together. Accept the impermanence, cherish the moments that may be our last. Enjoy it.

So no, I will not erase the memories because I said before, if I would be given a chance to go back in time, I will do it over and over, with no regrets. I think I have no regrets. I would just have to suffer the memories until the scars hurt no more.

There is beauty in impermanence, like the sakura. It only blooms for a short time and you hold on to it until it fades away. While it’s there, you enjoy it because you know it will soon be gone and it’s the memory of the sakura that you hold, that stays with you.

I did ask myself several times before, how long will this stay like this? Because he was very impulsive like Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and I told him that several times that his impulsiveness is sometimes his undoing. He comes and goes. I did write several times in the past, asked myself how long will I be able to hold on to him before he goes away again because I knew he will be bored. I think my only error in this entire story is that I deluded myself into thinking that he will stay even though I knew in the deep recesses of my mind he won’t.

Bittersweet

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National Science Complex, UP Diliman. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

This is the first time I’ve been here for months. We used to have our daily walks here during the lockdown. Most of the time it was just the two of us here. We walked around past Math, Chem (where we rescued the cats), around the observatory. We used to see sheep roaming around and sometimes when we passed by them, we could smell the stench of those animals.

Another angle. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

It was at this same hour we would be having those walks. To have a bit of “fresh” air. We used to watch the birds flit from branches. There were colorful birds that hopped on the grass, enjoying the absence of humans. Dogs past Math used to bark at us savagely. We still used to hold hands then… Before everything went south. Or was he pretending then because he didn’t have a choice since he was stuck because of the lockdown?

And if I would erase memories, I would be conflicted about erasing those memories here in Science Complex. Just like Joel in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, he suddenly didn’t want those memories erased. But the process has begun to wipe out Clementine.

How do we live with memories? I don’t know… I have this uncanny ability of wiping out memories. I have done it many times, especially when it hurt so bad. My cousin and my sis-in-law had to remind me of a very important but painful memory that was the biggest warning sign that I shouldn’t have gotten married 13 years ago. It was completely blocked out of my mind; I had no recollection of it but they told it was real and that it happened.

In the movie Eternal Sunshine, the one doing the erasing is a laboratory. In real life, I am the Lacuna Inc, I can do it on my own. The question is, do I want everything wiped out?

Erasing memories

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Studies about memories suggest that false memories can be implanted. What I am doing right now is I’m doing the reverse. I am erasing memories, especially the painful ones, by supplanting it with new ones until the original memory fades away.

Marikina River park. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

The last time I was at the Marikina River Park was so painful. He wanted to bike and I served as a chauffer. During the entire time, he didn’t want to talk to me, hold my hand or anything. He just wanted to ride his bike, be over and done with it. I felt so abandoned and lonely. I was confused why I felt that way.

Then later that night in his condo, while I was cleaning, he was testy, like he couldn’t wait to get rid of me. I asked him why was he treating me that way. He probably felt guilty so he tried to console me. But it was hollow. Driving home, I felt really sad and lonely. I knew something was really wrong. Later that week we broke up.

Marikina River Park. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I am now erasing that memory of Marikina River Park. It was just too painful. Like I didn’t amount to anything.

I will supplant it with memories of me and my girls. Today we just went there to do just that.

If only I could do that to every painful memory I have of him. Which was quite a lot.

Come to think of it, it’s quite unfair that I get to suffer like this while he is happy and free when I was the one who sacrificed the world for us. For him.

I wish I could do an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and just erase memories. To the point that he never existed. To spare me of this anger and pain. I hope I won’t be like Joel in the movie, who fought to keep the memories and the pain rather than lose them while the erasing process was being done.

Maybe it’s better to have memories of having loved but in pain than not have loved at all? I don’t know. Come back to me in 10 years and ask me that again.

Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind