Chasing Perfection

Not based on a true story.

It’s painful realizing you’ve spent most of your life in the dark. Like a mouse scrambling through a little maze I’ve been making twists and turns, yearning for the light at the end of the tunnel, for the cheese that may await. Fueled by the ravenous appetite inside of me I explored all avenues of life, my blissful ignorance allowing me to wake up every day truly believing I had a meaningful purpose on this Earth. Everything I did, I did for the cheese. It dictated my every breath, it kept my heart pumping with blood. It was my everything. Until the curtains were pulled back on the entire, elaborate myth.

The cheese I had so desperately longed for—friends, success, happiness, and so on— was meaningless. My naive perception of the world had allowed me to believe that those things were of actual importance, that I was anything more than a pawn in the system. And it took but a moment, albeit a life altering one, for my preconceived notions of the world to shatter. One seemingly innocuous day, it took just one seemingly innocuous moment for my eyes to be truly opened to the light, and for me to escape from the maze. The day I ate the perfect grape.

My relationship with grapes leading up to that fateful day was far from remarkable. Like any other civilized child, I enjoyed eating grapes. Purple or crimson, black or green, no matter the shape, I would pop them in my mouth and relish the refreshing burst that would ensue. Of course, I avoided any grape flavored products like grape Tylenol or grape Jolly Ranchers, but if anything that was a sign of respect to real grapes rather than a slight towards them. I refused to let grape flavored products destroy the integrity of the fruit. They are a disservice to real grapes and to this day I protest their existence. Anyhow, that summer afternoon I was enjoying grapes as usual, when I popped one into my mouth, and my world was shaken. 

The temperature? Chilled to perfection.

The texture? Just the right amount of resistance, putting up a spirited fight, slowly losing the battle against my unrelenting teeth, before finally giving in. All in a matter of milliseconds.

And the taste. Oh, the taste. No sequence of words, in the annals of human history, could do the taste of that grape justice. Succulent, delectable, exquisite, heavenly. They all fail to capture the true essence of the grape, the elation I felt upon biting into it. It ascended my soul, it offered me salvation, it opened my third eye. Yet, if I could do it all over again, I’d find the seed that sprouted the vine of that grape, and launch it into space, far, far, away from this Earth.

The human mind is a dangerous beast. I once would’ve assumed eating the perfect grape would bring enlightenment. Perhaps even eternal happiness, an impenetrable feeling of bliss. And for a moment it did. But the crash that followed the consumption of that grape was rivaled only by the likes of the Hindenburg and the Titanic. In the blink of an eye, my life had been permanently altered. Suddenly, the dreams and aspirations that had once seemed of importance faded away, and my mind’s eye had a sole focus: finding another perfect grape.

Days were spent foraging through vineyards for the grape that could bring me fulfillment, doing my best to recollect every last detail of The Perfect Grape— the color, the firmness, the exact size that had allowed a simple fruit to edify my existence.  

The nights were long and lonesome. Sleep was scant, no matter how many times I tried to count grapes to lull myself into rest. I often found myself physically shaking in bed, profusely sweating and gripping my sheets, fleeting images of The Perfect Grape running through my mind. 

I write to you now as if those events are of the past, but the truth is they are not. I have yet to find perfection for the second time. They say lightning doesn’t strike twice, but that won’t stop me from standing in the middle of the proverbial thunderstorm with a metal rod. Ending my pursuit is no longer an option. My body, my heart, and my soul are connected to this chase, and my existence is predicated on my every waking moment being dedicated to chasing perfection. 

I wish I could be satisfied with experiencing perfection once. I wish I could feel grateful. Instead, I feel spiteful. I feel bitter, yearning for another fleeting moment of euphoria, unable to be satisfied by any of life’s other worldly pleasures. 

In light of my experiences with The Grape, I’ve found myself reflecting on this famous quote:

“Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” – Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I’m not so sure if I can agree with Lord Tennyson. Had I never been introduced to that grape, my life would be so much simpler. Sure, for a moment I may have experienced utopia. But the downward spiral it has sent me on has made me wish I had never been near that intoxicating fruit. We’ll never be able to fully appreciate what we have; we’ll always set our sights on what’s next, what’s bigger, what’s better. And for that reason, perfection is not something I would wish on my worst enemy.