Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I’m sitting at a café table in the DFW international terminal, waiting for a flight to Frankfurt. I’m a standby passenger, and there’s little chance that a seat will be available – today, tomorrow, the rest of the week. Still, I decide to wait it out, my hopeful nature getting the best of me, and I pull out what I believe to be an unused blue journal to record my pre-trip thoughts, just as I always do. To my surprise, the journal contains one previous entry from an ironic moment – my flight back to the USA after my first full year in the Czech Republic.

The “me” from that moment in time would likely be fairly surprised by the present “me” and our opposing realities. In contrast to earlier expectations about my future, this current trip overseas does not involve lugging all my worldly possessions with me to move permanently to Europe. Rather, I’m sporting a small carryon with enough clothes for a week in the Czech Republic and a few small gifts for friends there that I left behind almost a year ago.

Interested to glimpse into the history of my own mind, I begin reading:

“I’m on a flight back home to Dalals after a year in the Czech Republic. By happenstance, I ended up next to a Czech man from Prague currently living in Dallas with his family. After exchanging the usual tidbits of personal information and sharing a bit about my year and travels, the man enquired about my return home and my feelings about it. He cautioned that now I am distinctively "cosmopolitan", and it will be extremely difficult to erase the memories, feelings, and transformations accumulated after a year in Europe.

"You will never forget it", he said decidedly, and the simplicity of his statement struck me as such a simple way to describe such overwhelming emotions.

Of course I won't forget it! The past year has altered me enough that I’ve decided to return to the Czech again in the fall. But the question is - to what extent can I forget what I'll leave behind in the USA, given the uncertainty of what my future abroad may bring?

Half-awake, I watched the in-flight movie "The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", in which two ex-lovers experiment with a new scientific procedure to erase each other’s memories, only to discover in the process that they wished they hadn’t. Through the course of the movie, which doesn’t occur in chronological order, you witness the deterioration of their relationship, from the first romantic encounter to the fight that ends it all. Drowning in bittersweet memories, the pair focuses only on their partner’s faults; but, as the entirety of their relationship rewinds in the process of erasure, they recall fonder moments from their beginning that they unconsciously hold on to. These memories eventually enable them to “meet” again as “strangers” and begin their relationship anew. Even after discovering the truth about their past, they risk disappointment again for the positive romantic potential they’ve found in each other once more.

It’s not such a strange concept, I think, as I thumb through the pictures glued to the journal cover. I received this journal as a graduation gift from college friends, and photographs dot the front and back linings. They remind me of past times that seem so distant and strange, like something my mind tried to erase unsuccessfully, and remembering them again only makes me seemingly discontent in my present state. Staring at the past, I sometimes forget the potential in my future.

But how do you forget people, places and memories that were such an important part of you, even if it was a long time ago. Could I ever really forget friends from Vanderbilt, my home town, Nashville, Greg, for a future in Europe that no one from my past seems to truly understand?”


Almost two years have passed since I wrote those words on the blank pages of a new journal. Just as my thoughts then were ironic due to the sentimental medium in which I wrote, so this entry is ironic due to its juxtaposing nature with my situation at the time. Since that journey, my life has done a complete 180, and I’m living a life opposite of what I wanted then. But the strange thing is – I’m happy.

I moved to dreaded Atlanta after my second year abroad; Greg and I are back together; I commute daily to my job at a large corporation; I work out regularly at a trendy gym; I subscribe to “Martha Stewart Living”. My life is deliciously stable.



I cautiously observe the other passengers board the full flight to Frankfurt until the gate attendant shuts the doors. And that is that. To my surprise, I breathe a sigh of relief.

My long-scheduled plans to visit the Czech Republic have just been crushed with the swinging of a gate door, but I realized at this moment that, in my heart of hearts, I didn’t really want to get on that plane in the first place. I’m not ready yet to face the past I left behind. The memories are still too close, and I don’t want the memories of my past to compromise the contentment I feel in the present.

If I’m to truly embrace my choices and move on, I need to be emotionally prepared to face what I left behind with a strong will, because it’s not erased. The Czech is still very much inside me, and it will remain there for as long as I live. But moving on is about closing doors, and true happiness occurs when you can open them again to look back on what you learned from the experience and how it helped you become the person you are today.

For right now, the gate door is closed, and a plane full of strangers is heading to Europe. I’ll go home to Atlanta, go back to work, and count the blessings that surround me, knowing that the door is not closed forever, and that I’ll find myself standing in front of this door again one day. Perhaps then I’ll be ready to open it.