As we’ve all come to conclude, I like to notice things. That’s kind of the point of this blog.

Above is a quote from the movie “Before Sunset,” a sequel to “Before Sunrise” starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. The movie is the second in a trilogy following the love story of Jesse and Celine, portrayed by Hawke and Delpy. The films are minimalistic, intimate and eagerly receptive to the intricacies of love and contrasting perspective. 

Jesse is an American travelling through Europe when he meets Celine, a French student on a European train. The two get off the train together at a stop and spend one romantic night together through the dimly lit streets of Vienna learning each other’s hopes, dreams, fears and souls. The trilogy has its own heartbeat, an emblem of media so consumed with raw human emotion and yearning that audiences cannot help but see themselves in one of the two leading characters. 

I, for one, have never found myself so deeply connected to a written character than I do Celine.

In this scene, Celine and Jesse sift through the water as Celine details her inability to ever, truly, get over the romance she has experienced. While this human condition may be deemed toxic or harmful in modern media and a hyper independent culture, I find it to be the complete opposite. 

We are so often daunted with the notion that we must move on. That once a person has left our lives or we have left theirs, it is time for us to get up and move on, leaving that love and intimacy in the past to wither and rot. If this were the purpose of experiencing people and love, why might the human species harbor such stark memory, and why might we wish to have it all back when we grow old?

That person once knew the way you brushed your teeth, the amount of toothpaste you let drip down your chin until you finally grabbed your wash cloth. They once knew your coffee order, the number of pumps of vanilla you took and the amount of perfume spritzes you sprayed before running out the door. They knew your grandparent’s name and held your grandmother’s hands as she praised how happy she was that they were in your life. Forgetting all of this is not healthy. In fact, it is nearly impossible. 

I run the risk of overdoing the movie references in this blog by mentioning “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” where Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet’s characters both undergo a memory erasure procedure after they break up. The estranged couple attempt to forget each other and relieve themselves of their heart break through the procedure, only to spend the entirety of the film begging for the memories of their love back, realizing that the love and the other’s uniqueness had imprinted on their lives for the better, whether they realized it through their initial pain or not.

This is not to say we must be stuck in love with seven flings and two long-term relationships for all of eternity. It is rather to say that there is power in vulnerability and acceptance. As humans, we are inclined to observe. When we are passionate, or thoroughly in love, this inclination is heightened. We want to devour their favorite book, memorize the lines cupping their smile, note the way they bite the string of their sweatshirt when they are antsy. It is our way. The art of noticing each other. 

Celine, like myself, recognizes this. She may be named “too emotional,” but there lies a quiet stoicism in being able to accept that we will always hold those we have loved dear to our hearts. To push down that past love and appreciation is to warp our own conscious state and convince ourselves that that person is less than we once thought them to be, simply because we are not actively in love with them. Having love for someone is not the same as being in love with them, and that is what I notice we have tangled beyond simple repair. 

We are all made up of these small, seemingly subsequent traits that make us so interesting and different to love. When we force ourselves to forget the relationships, or simply flings in our past, we attempt to constrain these unique feelings we’ve had for such differing souls into one box. This Pandora’s box will forever seep into our chests and pound against the walls of our atriums, unless we are able to accept that the love and care will always live on in a space in time. It is not lost to the ether, disintegrating into the mantle or welling within a bubbling and beckoning volcano. It is within us. 

This blog post differs from my previous content. I usually write to you about the things we should notice more. Today, I wanted to focus on digging up what you have already noticed through your passion and love for others. Peace only arrives when acceptance is present. If we push our human inclination to nostalgia and appreciation down far enough, we will hit the pan. Let these feelings live on in your bloodstream, your consciousness. They will guide you to know when you find what is finally right.

It is okay to ache. To have loved and lost, and to be thankful and better for it. We are a mosaic of everyone we have loved, a scrapbook of memory in human form. Let that be a blessing, not a calamity.