The Ruby Tuesday Theorem: Parallel Lines Finally Intersect

It's a curious thing, memory. It clings to certain moments with a tenacity that borders on the obsessive, while letting others slip away like sand in an hourglass[1]. It's even more curious how these moments – seemingly insignificant slivers of time – shape us, mold us, and somehow become the scaffolding upon which we construct our sense of self. For years, one such memory defined me, convinced me my world had ended before it had truly begun. A memory that, like some sort of cosmic joke, was inextricably linked to a Rolling Stones song about the ephemeral nature of, well, everything.

Picture, if you will, a food court in a nondescript American mall, circa 1994. The kind of place that exists in a sort of liminal space between childhood and adulthood (and Season 3 of Stranger Things), where teenagers go to feel less alone while simultaneously avoiding any real human connection (An irony not lost on me, even now, decades later.).

I was there, of course. Sixteen, awkward, nursing a Whopper with the kind of reverence usually reserved for religious artifacts. The Whopper, in this scenario, serving as both sustenance and shield – a greasy, flame-broiled barrier between me and the terrifying prospect of actual human interaction.

She would never say where she came from

And then, because the universe has a sense of humor that veers between sublime and sadistic, the opening of "Ruby Tuesday" by The Rolling Stones began to drift through the mall's tinny speakers.

Now, it's worth noting here that I've always had a complicated relationship with music, particularly songs that seem to have wormed their way into the collective consciousness. There's something about their ubiquity that both comforts and unsettles me, they're a shared language that everyone but me seems fluent in. Have you ever been the only person at a party who doesn't get an inside joke? You laugh along, but there's always that nagging feeling of being an outsider, of missing some crucial piece of information that would make everything click into place.

But I digress. (A habit, I'm afraid, that I've never quite managed to shake.)

And then, because the universe wasn't done with its cosmic joke, I heard another voice. Soft, clear, cutting through the ambient noise of the food court like a hot knife through butter (or, perhaps more aptly, like my teeth through a Whopper):

"Whenever I hear this song, I think of you."

I turned, more out of reflex than conscious decision, and there she was. Let's call her Ruby, because why not lean into the absurdity of it all? Ruby from my geometry class, a girl I'd spent countless hours pretending not to stare at while our teacher droned on about parallel lines and intersecting planes.

She was looking at me, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth, and I felt my heart do that thing that hearts do in movies and books – that sudden lurch that feels like falling and flying all at once.

"Hi," I managed to say, my voice cracking in a way that would have been mortifying if I'd had the presence of mind to be embarrassed.

"Hi," she replied, and then, after a beat: "Mind if I join you?"

And just like that, we were talking. Really talking, in a way that only seems possible when you're young and everything feels both incredibly important and utterly inconsequential. We talked about school, about music, about the strange state of being almost-adults but not quite.

No one knows, she comes and goes

I remember being struck by how easy it was, how natural. There was none of the awkwardness I'd come to expect from interactions with my peers, especially those I harbored secret crushes on. It was as if we'd known each other for years, or in some other life.

The conversation meandered, as the best conversations do, until we found ourselves on the topic of music. I mentioned, almost offhandedly, my fondness for The Replacements, fully expecting her to give me that blank look I'd grown accustomed to when discussing my more obscure musical interests.

But instead, her eyes lit up. "Wait, you like The Replacements?" she asked, her voice tinged with excitement and disbelief.

And suddenly, we were off, trading favorite songs and discussing the merits of "Tim" versus "Let It Be." It was the kind of conversation I'd dreamed of having but never quite believed was possible, especially not with someone like Ruby.

When we made plans to meet the next day, I thought my life was finally beginning. That I had stumbled upon an elusive intersection point where parallel lines meet, defying all laws of Euclidean geometry.

As the afternoon wore on and the mall began to empty, I felt a sense of panic rising in my chest. I didn't want this to end, didn't want to go back to being alonely kid eating Whoppers by himself. And then, as if reading my mind, Ruby said, "We should do this again tomorrow."

I must have looked stunned, because she laughed – not unkindly – and said, "Here, let me give you my address. You can pick me up around noon?"

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, and watched as she scribbled her address on a napkin. As she handed it to me, our fingers brushed, and I felt that jolt again. We said our goodbyes, and I watched her walk away, the napkin clutched in my hand like a talisman. I remember thinking, as I made my way home, this must be what it feels like when your life is about to change.

I found myself busy imagining a future where Ruby and I would tell this story at parties, laughing about the serendipity of it all. "Remember that time in the mall food court?" we'd say, and our friends would roll their eyes good-naturedly, having heard the story a hundred times before but indulging us anyway.

But that future never came. The next day, when I showed up at her house, heart pounding with anticipation, I was met with news that felt like a physical blow. Ruby had been in a car accident.

Lose your dreams and you will lose your mind

I went to the funeral, feeling like an imposter. People who recognized me from school asked why I was there, and I couldn't explain. How could I tell them that in the span of one afternoon, Ruby had become my whole world? How could I make them understand that with her death, I felt like my life, too, had ended?

For years after, I was trapped in a vicious cycle of "what ifs." What if we had met earlier? What if I had gotten to know her sooner? What if she hadn't gotten into that car? I went through the motions of life – finished high school, went to college, got a job – but I wasn't really living. I was existing in a state of perpetual "what if," always looking back, never forward. A human embodiment of Zeno's paradox, forever approaching a point I could never reach.

I had lost my dreams, lost my mind, lost myself in a haze of regret and missed opportunities. I become a cautionary tale, a walking, talking example of the dangers of living in the past.

Relationships came and went, but I never fully invested in them. How could I, when I was still clinging to the memory of that one perfect afternoon?

It took far too many years for me to realize fixating on what might have been with Ruby, I was missing out on what could be. I was so focused on the life I imagined I might have had, I wasn't building the life I actually had.

There's no time to lose, I heard her say

Fast forward two decades and I am in a relationship with someone, let's call her Angie, because why not keep with the Rolling Stones? She didn't know about Ruby, didn't know why I was so hesitant to fully engage in our relationship. All she knew was that I wasn't fully present, that I was always holding something back. That I was, in essence, treating our relationship like a particularly complex math problem, always trying to solve for x instead of simply experiencing it.

Ruby Tuesday reminded me, not as a painful reminder of what I'd lost, but as a wake-up call. There really was no time to lose. Life was not a series of parallel lines stretching infinitely into the distance. It was a complex, messy tangle of intersections and divergences, of missed connections and unexpected meetings. It wasn't geometry; it was a bowl of spaghetti with marinara and you're wearing white.

Breaking free from the grip of "what if" was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I had to confront my fears, my regrets, my tendency to idealize the past at the expense of the present. I had to learn to let go, to embrace uncertainty, to live in the now. To accept that life, like geometry, is full of theorems that can't be proven, only experienced.

Slowly, painfully, I began to change. Not for her, but for myself. I started to appreciate the beauty of the present moment, rather than always looking back or anxiously peering into the future. I began to open up, to take risks, to allow myself to be vulnerable. To treat each day not as a problem to be solved, but as an experience to be lived.

And Angie... Angie stayed. Not because she fixed me or saved me. But because as I learned to be present, to be fully in our relationship, she saw someone worth staying for. Someone who was finally ready to let parallel lines intersect, to allow for the possibility of a future that wasn't predetermined by the past.

Today, Angie is my wife. We have a life together that lonely kid in the mall never could have imagined. We have our ups and downs, our moments of joy and frustration, just like any couple. But we're happy. Really, truly happy. And isn't that, in the end, all we can ask for?

Yesterday don't matter if it's gone

I still think about Ruby sometimes. How could I not? But now, instead of dwelling on what might have been, I'm grateful for what was. Grateful for that one perfect afternoon that showed me I was capable of connection. Grateful for the lesson, hard-learned as it was, about the preciousness of now. About the importance of catching our dreams before they slip away.

Because we're all standing on the edge of the unknown. Every day, every interaction, carries within it the potential for transformation. And while it's easy to get caught up in the what-ifs and the might-have-beens, the real magic lies in recognizing the beauty of the present moment. In allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, to take risks, to live fully in the now, and let that take us somewhere.

So thank you Ruby, wherever she may be. And to Angie, who stayed while I learned to live again. And to all of us, stumbling through life, looking off from the edge for something wonderful. May we have the courage to embrace it, to live fully in each moment, knowing that the best is rarely behind us, but often just ahead.

Yesterday don't matter if it's gone. But today? Today matters. Today is all we have. So let's make it count.

[1] It's worth noting here that the hourglass, as a metaphor for the passage of time, is itself a curious thing. Unlike actual time, which moves in one direction only (barring any major breakthroughs in physics that I'm unaware of), an hourglass can be turned over, allowing the sand to flow back to where it started. Maybe this is why we're so drawn to memories – they allow us, in some small way, to turn over the hourglass of our lives, to return to moments long past.