Heartbreak, yes, they are unbearable. They can lead us to irrational acts. But to want to erase all memory after a love estrangement is drastic, isn’t it? Was it absolutely awful, or was it a love so deep? If it were the latter, how could you let go of all the meaningful feelings, nostalgic memories, honesty shared, unquestioned passion, and erotic euphoria?

Questions were all I had after watching Charlie Kaufman’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” I had binged through all the great love stories put on film the entire weekend. All recommendations from friends and family who came to my aid when Paul abruptly left me.

Well, it was not exactly abrupt. I saw it coming. I’m sure he did too. Honestly, I don’t think it was a great love story like Clementine and Joel. We were just Paul and Emily. It started with an injection of bliss that modern coupling brings, but we drank that nectar of bliss dry.

We didn’t know that all that was left was confronting each other. Sharing our insecurities, quirks, secrets, shame, shortcomings, and coldness for the next couple of years was frightening. We had a lot of unmasking to do, just not in front of each other. Honestly, I wanted to unmask my demons sooner because I didn’t want to spend a lonely summer, attending weddings, dinner parties, and baby showers solo.

I do have time to find a temporary replacement, but it’s not a priority. The reality is, I don’t want to think of being in this state of loss. For now, I want to take a deep dive into my escape material from heartbreak. Would I go through a memory-erasing procedure so I can forget Paul ever existed?

Am I in that much pain? Was my relationship with Paul as volatile as that of Clementine and Joel? On the surface, we were just boring people. I am plain old Emily. I have never dyed my hair and would never attempt to walk in public with the colors Clementine wore on her hair. Paul was not as insecure or self-loathing as Joel.

Or was our volatility on the inside? There were days when I could swear that Paul hated everything I did. I could sense the disdain for how I ate, how I conversed with our friends, and how I took time to put on eyeliner because I’m self-conscious about my eyebrows.

He didn’t record what he didn’t like about me like Joel, but I’m sure it was recorded inside of him. I surely recorded everything I hated about him inside of me. Hate is a strong word. He would, however, subtly correct my grammar, making it sound like a cute joke, softening it with a tender kiss.

The act that ignited a wild rage inside of me was when he organized my magazines next to his books on the philosophies of Michel Foucault, Edward Said, and Claude Levi-Strauss. No, hate is not a strong word.

Yes, I am, but a lowly office assistant, and he was a professor, well, assistant professor, but that was it, a cold, sneaky class war. That’s what you get when two lonely people swipe right on a dating app. Is this worth losing all my memories of him?

There is a part of me that wants him to walk into my place of work and wonder why I don’t know him anymore. I want to cause a reaction in him so soul-shaking that it will make him wonder how I could do such a thing. What could he have done to make me want to lose all memory of him?

I’m just being cruel now. Heartbreak is cruel. Memory can be punishingly cruel. Processing what has passed us by is indeed a slice of life. That’s why this gut-punch of a movie is hitting me so hard.

Two people reliving a collection of memories so they can run away from one of life’s hardest truths, that at the end of the day, we are all just passing each other by. You can be married for 50 years, but that day will come when you have to part ways.

Clementine and Joel were just speeding up the inevitable. Weaving in and out of their memories together, so they live through them one more time, saying goodbye forever. But is my time with Paul worth speeding up the inevitable? This question makes me spiral in wondrous agony.

I loved it when Joel told Clementine, “I thought you were a nut. But you were excited.” Why couldn’t Paul have said something like that to me? The lines of Joel that were probably spewing inside of Paul were, “ Are we like those bored couples you feel sorry for in restaurants? Are we dining with the dead? I can’t stand the idea of us being a couple, people think that about.”

Our dinner dates definitely felt that way. Just two boring people going through the motions, doing things couples do because that’s what we were supposed to do. But if I’m being honest with myself, I miss being boring with him. Or at least part of me does.

It’s the part of me that’s drawn to this movie. I don’t know what to do with all this memory. How could love so mundane cause this much hurt? I keep rewinding to Clementine’s line, “Too many guys think I’m a concept, or I complete them, or I’m going to have to make them alive. But I’m just a fucked up girl looking for my own piece of mind.”

I may not have Clementine's free-spiritedness, but I do feel that Paul thought I was a concept that could complete him and make him feel alive. I was not. Maybe that’s it. It’s this sense of failure that makes me want to forget it all.

But like Joel, I can’t quite zero in on the memories before I met Paul. Did I love him that much, or is this movie coincidentally hitting all the right emotional strings that are connected to my wounded heart?

What is he thinking about right now? How is he hurting? Is he watching “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” as well? Very likely not. He’s probably face deep into one of his boring books. I do miss the image of him reading his books while pressing his index fingers to his temple.

It always seemed that he pressed his temple to ensure every sentence and thought made it into his brain. When he read his books, he was his truest self, in his element. I’ll miss that and hate whoever he finds next to complete his boring life.

It’s why I want to forget it all. No. I’m not going to erase all memories of him because I can’t. We don’t have that kind of technology. Even if it exists, I wouldn’t. I would have to forget ever watching this movie and thinking of him. I will also forget my favorite line when Clementine says, “I’m always anxious, thinking I’m not living my life to the fullest, you know? Taking advantage of every possibility.”

Who am I supposed to be, and where is life going to take me? I don’t want life and love to pass me by anymore. I’m going to stop being anxious about every encounter, every opportunity, and maybe with time, know what I’m going to do with this life.

Maybe, just maybe, I’ll have the courage to accept what fate brings my way, creating new memories to become a new person, just like Clementine and Joel. Right now, I’ll continue to remember the hard memories, the ones that are telling me to shift my very being, so that I can start again, hopefully with an eternal spotless mind.