Totally worth it

This weekend I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I know, I know, I'm like 7 years behind the times. But I'm glad I am. Now was the perfect moment to watch it.

For those still uninitiated, the mind-bending flick centers around an intriguing procedure that allows people to have their memory of a person erased. (I will now proceed to outline the plot. Activate spoiler alert!) In this movie, Clementine and Joel recently broke up, and Clementine opts for the procedure. When Joel finds out, he decides to get the procedure as well. Most of the movie takes place during Joel's procedure, and we get a glimpse of his relationship through sporadic memories, which being to disintegrate and disappear as he is reliving them. At first he recalls all the bad memories, but as the good ones begin to surface he realizes he doesn't want to let them go, even if it means holding onto the bad as well. So, he struggles to keep them, but the resistance is ultimately futile and all of his memories of his former love are expunged. So when they meet again, they have absolutely no recollection of one another. They accidentally discover just how intimately they once knew one another when a former employee of the private clinic that performs the procedure mails them the cassette tapes of their initial interview, in which they explain why they want to have the memory of their former significant other erased.

And, well, the stuff they say on those tapes pretty much sounds like the sort of stuff my "I would dance over her dead body" friend was saying last night. But also the sort of stuff we all start thinking about near the end of a relationship. How something that you thought was cute when you first started dating now just annoys the shit out of you. Or stupid mundane things like the way he stands in front of the fridge with the door wide open for minutes at a time. Ugh, doesn't he know that it lets all the cold air out?

But, right after that super uncomfortable scene comes this next one, where these strangers can't imagine that the things they say on the tapes could be true about this oh-so-wonderful person they just met.  They decide to give it another go. Not because they're naive, no. Deep down they know they'll end up with their hearts broken all over again. But I like to think that they also know that even those shittiest of times are totally worth it if you also get to live through those truly incredibly moments, like when you're staring at your partner and thinking, "I'd be so happy if I just lived in this very moment forever."