Puzzles

Not everyone fits together with other people's puzzle pieces, and shoving two pieces to together that don't fit only ends up in frustration and will roughen the edges of each piece, making it harder to eventually properly fit where it belongs. 

It can be hard to realise that maybe a piece is missing from your puzzle box. Maybe it fell down the side of the sofa cushion, or behind the bookcase, or slipped under the rug. You have this beautiful puzzle laid out before you, but that missing piece is all you can focus on. You obsess over this missing piece, crawling around on all fours, running your hand under the sofa, only to find Lego pieces, lost buttons and toddler socks. No piece that fits in your puzzle.

In rage, you launch the puzzle off of the table and it slams to ground, pieces scattered across the room. You stare at it, broken on the floor, wondering why you bothered in the first place. It was never going to be finished, it was never going to be right, it was never going to be perfect.

But you had a lot of fun doing that puzzle.

You sink to floor, gathering the pieces, placing them gently back into the box. You place the box back onto the shelf, and you promise to try again another day. But what you don't realise is that you missed a piece, it slid behind the TV cabinet when the puzzle shattered on the floor. So the next time you try, another piece is missing, you could have sworn it was there before, you were only missing one piece last time, now you need to find two. 

Each time you were so close to "perfection" but the desire to be perfect caused you to ruin the very perfectly imperfect thing you already had, making it harder and harder to piece back together. The thing you actually quite enjoyed, until you didn't. Until you became so crazed over this tiny insignificant piece, that everything else was a waste of time so why bother anymore.

It can be hard to commit to something, when you feel like something is missing. If something is missing you wonder if there is any point even starting it in the first place, because without every single piece, it's waste of time.

You don't know that something is missing until you try. If it turns out a piece is missing, or the wrong puzzle piece got put into the box and shoving it into the same space repeatedly is not working, you can give up on that quest for the final piece for now, you can appreciate the puzzle you have already created. It's beautiful, it's intricate, it's detailed, it has texture and colour and...a missing piece. 

This piece does not define you, it does not mean you are lacking. It just means you have yet to find it. Under the sofa, under the rug, behind the bookcase. One day when you're just tidying the house, you'll pick up a sofa cushion and out will fall the missing piece to a puzzle you long forgot you had even cared about finishing. 

You'll hold this tiny piece in your hand. This piece that once upon time meant everything to you. This piece you thought you needed to feel complete. You realise that this tiny piece seems less important now, and is in fact only a bit of plain midnight sky, across an already stunning ceiling of stars.