Theory of Knowledge I think everyone, at least to some degree, believes in the extrinsic possibility of finding the embodiment of love, or something great like that. You sort of have to believe this idea, because you wake up and brush your teeth and work night shifts and get your education with the idea that somewhere out there, amidst heartbreak and one night stands and transitory crushes, that your perfect half is standing in the rain without you, and that person is your final total completion of your ten foot little world. You want a car, a job, a house, but mostly you want love. That stupid, corny, loaded, idiotic thing. I used to believe that idea, but somewhere along the line I guess it all unraveled. Too much broken heart, I guess, or maybe exhaustion from repeating that whole process over and over again. The late night phone calls, the frantic gift wrapping, meeting the parents, learning the unique rhythms of the kiss, cleaning up after sex, telling all your old life stories, the cheater’s paranoia, saying I love you like it actually means something. All those romantic staples become the same after a while, and you wake up next to a new body one day with all that baggage behind you, and you wonder, is this love? Is this what it’s supposed to be? I’d like to say it’s going to work this time, but everything has to end eventually. I used to think
romance was forever, but you walk close enough to the hologram and you can see it’s just a flat image of something that’s supposed to look real. You see the old smiling couple married for fifty years and they’re just going through the motions, holding hands because the past accounts for something, and no one else is waiting in the rain for them. I look in the passenger seat of my car and time doesn’t exist anymore. This girl, that girl, someone new, someone old. This time it’s her, and I think I tell a new joke this time but ...
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romance was forever, but you walk close enough to the hologram and you can see it’s just a flat image of something that’s supposed to look real. You see the old smiling couple married for fifty years and they’re just going through the motions, holding hands because the past accounts for something, and no one else is waiting in the rain for them. I look in the passenger seat of my car and time doesn’t exist anymore. This girl, that girl, someone new, someone old. This time it’s her, and I think I tell a new joke this time but I might have told it before. She smiles and I expect it, of course, and I’ve taken her to this place before; not her really, but someone before her, and it might as well be her but it’s not. This is just the same, but I have more baggage behind me, more stories to share, more things to say when we get into the trance of talking about everything. This is time folding in half and I’m cruising through the continuum of a life before heartbreak and before the weight of baggage, trying to remember why I’m even with this person, and I wonder, is this what it’s supposed to be. Repeated a thousand times over and over. I make a left turn somewhere and I end up lost somehow. She berates me and I guess I deserve it. I’ve been here a hundred times but I’m lost and I’m hungry and she’s hungry too. Aren’t they always hungry, I think to myself, and I think of my wallet and how various ex-girlfriends used to be disgusted when I got lost and I think of old couples smiling and turning into sand. I look at the window and there’s a thousand reflections of different people, shades of a silly quest to find love or whatever the hell it’s called, and I don’t remember why I’m here and all I know is that I’m lost. She doesn’t know this because she actually thinks I’m normal. Or sane, or whatever the hell I used to be before I had to jump into the motions again. Ah yeah, I’m on the wrong interstate now, so I get this crazy idea to drive over the median through the grass to make a u-turn. This is a bad idea because your car can get stuck in the decline or you can pop your tire on the incline, but I do it anyway, and the girl (what girl?) calls me insane. She sees the cracks through the holograms for a second and knows I’m completely out of my mind. I expect her to say something degrading but she doesn’t, and that’s a little weird, because I just did something stupid (I’ve done this before?) and she’s supposed to look at me with disgust and call me an idiot (moron, nincompoop, dumbass). But she just laughs and we’re on the road again, and I look at the reflection in the window and right then, no one is there but her. For a second, I think well that was different, and then the moment goes away. (she just saw my insanity and she’s okay with that?) We find this Thai restaurant and the sun’s already fading, a big yellow ball of wax in the sky. I think we hold hands (turning into sand) and we walk through the door and this guy with missing teeth leads us to an empty table. The place is all exquisite wood and jade elephants and floating Thai music and the food is crazy expensive. I think of my wallet again (because I’m cheap, I’ve always been cheap) and we eat this Pad Thai chicken that could’ve been anything because I’ve eaten like this in some other place with some other girl and pulled out this wallet. Then the check comes and she does the thing that girls do – she pulls out her purse like she’s going to pay for something. I do my little act of No, I’ll pay for it, and she does her little act of No, I’ll help you, and jesus, I think she actually pulls money out of her purse. She lays down some bills and I tell her again, No, I’ll pay for it, and she says the same thing and actually LEAVES THE MONEY THERE. I tell her I want to pay, but now I just want to pay to prevent my head from exploding. (has this happened before? has it?) Then we walk out and I tell her I’m sorry we got lost for two hours and I’m sorry that half the day is over and we ended up eating at some overpriced Thai place (apologies are always better with food). And she says something like It’s okay, we got to spend time driving, and I look at her and she’s holding my hand and I think right then that the side of my head actually explodes a little, and I bend over to pick up a chunk of my face and she opens her own door (which then the other side of my head promptly explodes) and I turn the keys in the ignition while putting my face back together. I mean that’s never happened before, you know. And we’re in the car again and she’s clearly enjoying herself, taking pictures and making fun of my ears and laughing about something, and I wonder if she’s just acting her part. Except I can smell out acting (like I have so many times before), and this time, when I wonder Is this what it’s supposed to be?, I actually think that, yeah, I think it is. People like to say it's different this time, but what if the scary possibility that it's true this time is actually true? What if she's, you know, for real? That might be worse than repeating this story over again. Because in five weeks, five months, five years, it might not matter anymore. She’ll be a face in that sea of faces, another item to pull through baggage claim, and I’ll be on the quest again. All things eventually must end, and that’s the whole problem with this love thing, because you can’t really go back to being innocent and naïve and totally trusting the idea that somewhere out there, standing in a torrent of horrible weather, is that perfect person waiting to embrace your every imperfect quality. That idea is behind me. But I guess sometimes, you have to make a crazy u-turn. You get lost this time, and all you can really do is just start all over.
