Last November, while the family and I were on vacation in Port Aransas, there was a day when we found ourselves a bit bored in the condo. Now, I know what you’re thinking… “Bored! At the beach??” Well, the weather that day wasn’t very favorable and it was a day that we had intentionally planned to be a bit low key, with no needed errands in town and no other adventures on the books… just a day to relax around the condo and enjoy the sights and sounds of the gulf.
The condo we stayed in had a couple of massive floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and they were littered with the typical beach trinkets you’re accustomed to seeing in a seaside retreat. There was quite the book and magazine collection as well. I was sitting next to these bookshelves, just daydreaming as I spun around in a swivel chair when I noticed something nestled in one of the bottom corners of the bookshelf… a puzzle. I didn’t give it a second thought at first, but as I kept spinning around, my eyes meeting the puzzle at each revolution, it’s as if the puzzle was calling to me, so I grabbed it and shook it out onto the dining table. I couldn’t begin to tell you when the last time was that I’d put a puzzle together, and I’m not quite sure what enticed me to start this one but, before I knew it, the family and I were deep into it.
Fast forward to present day, and there is a half-solved puzzle laid out on our dining table as I type this newsletter. That’s right, we’ve been hooked ever since. We bought some puzzles for a family Christmas present, and we’ve long since solved those and continue to buy new ones upon each completion of the last. It’s quite funny, as I don’t even remember enjoying puzzles as a kid. Perhaps I did and I just don’t remember it, but I am here to tell you that there is great joy in working on and completing puzzles.
I’m going to stop right here for a moment…
If I had a time machine and could travel back to meet my twenty year old self, and proceed to tell him that he is going to one day find extreme joy in putting puzzles together, he’d either laugh so hard he passes out, or he’d be certain that I had the wrong guy. Well, here we are, and I am a puzzle-solvin’ son of a gun.
Let’s continue…
A few days ago, I was sitting at the table, reading a book. I stopped to rest my eyes for a second, and found myself staring blankly at the puzzle before me. I didn’t work on it, I just sat there looking at it. The hundreds of pieces strewn about the table, the portions that have been completed as the image starts to take shape, it suddenly took on a completely different form, not in the literal sense, but metaphorically.
All of the sudden, I was no longer looking at a puzzle, I was looking at my life.
No, I’m not crazy and yes, I checked to make sure no one had slipped any psychedelics into my coffee… the puzzle simply took on a whole new meaning and it offered some pretty cool insight to life in general.
Let’s take it from day one… we’re born, and the puzzle pieces are shaken out onto the table. There’s no rhyme or reason to the pieces, it’s simply a pile of various shapes, sizes and colors. As infants and into our first few formative years of life, we’re sorting through the pieces. We start with the border pieces… they are the easiest to identify, and they’ll start to form the outer frame of what’s to come inside. This is us learning about our world. We start to establish the outer edges of who we are, what we do and don’t like, and what brings us comfort and order within. These borders are represented by our parents and siblings as they surround us with love and protection, and our home, where we feel the safest and most comfortable.
Next, we chip away at the more obvious parts of the puzzle. They go fairly quickly and start to offer a glimpse of what the finished puzzle will look like. This is our personality and character starting to develop as we become more and more unique in our own way. Our favorite foods, the activities we prefer, and the people we enjoy being around. Just as the puzzle expresses itself as the pieces join together and the image comes to life, we express ourselves with each passing adolescent year.
Next, and seemingly out of the blue, things start to get a bit difficult for the first time since the puzzle started. All of the sudden, the pieces aren’t offering the obvious clues that some of the easier ones did. You grab one, thinking it’s the right piece, yet it doesn’t fit. You scan the pile, yet each piece has its own stubborn feature that prevents it from fitting. This brings some confusion, some frustration, and it starts to require considerably more thinking and exploration. These are the pre-teen and teenage years. The newfound emotions and urges, the beginning stages of the feeling of independence, and all of the frustrations that come along with these things create the need for us to reflect on who we are for, in most cases, the very fist time. Innocence is lost, and our carefree days as “kids” start to erode and life introduces itself.
We’re in it pretty deep now… we’re winning some long-fought battles as we find the right pieces and slowly add to the unfolding image, and we’re starting to feel some momentum again. Suddenly, you realize that there’s a piece that, although it seemed like it fit, wasn’t the right one after all. Your stomach sinks a bit as you face the fact that you’ve got to remove quite a few pieces and start fresh on that area as you continue the search for the right piece. This is our first real experience with failure. A first love that ends in heartbreak, a denied college application, or a bad day on the varsity football team as it falls to its longtime rival, we’re left to pick up the pieces and start anew.
A few wrong pieces behind you, and you’re trucking along. The remaining pieces still shroud themselves in a bit of mystery, making you earn each fit, but you’re whittling away at them and the image keeps growing, showing a little more of itself with each added piece. This is early adulthood. Those pieces that didn’t fit, whether they were a job, a relationship, or a hobby, they’ve finally found their rightful place in the puzzle. You find the right fit in your spouse as you marry the love of your life, you finally settle into a career as those pieces all come together, and you start to discover new parts of the puzzle come to life as you welcome new friends and watch your children come into your life. There’s steady progress, and you could get used to this.
The other day, I got stuck looking for a specific piece of the puzzle we’re currently working on. I’ll admit it, I looked for hours, and to the point where I was convinced that there was a missing piece. It simply wasn’t there. I’d meticulously scanned the pile, one by one, and it just didn’t exist. I got tired of the repeated defeat, so I took a break and walked away for a bit. At some point during my break, my wife sat down and started to work on the puzzle and instantly found that “missing” piece and added it to the puzzle. After all of my searching, it turned out that the piece was literally right under my nose. As they say here in the south… “If that was a snake, it would’ve bitten you.” Well, in my case, it would have bitten me about twenty times.
This example lends itself to a couple of key points in life… First of all, we often tend to go out of our way to search for something that can seem so overwhelmingly out of reach. Our fixation on certain peripheral aspects can cloud our vision of the prize at hand, all while it sits quietly, right in front of us. Second, just as my wife stepped in and instantly found the missing piece, the people we love and care about most are always there to step in and help us see what’s often right in front of us. They offer a fresh perspective and outside opinion that helps the fog clear from the path ahead. Even further, sometimes even a complete stranger can have a profound effect on our perspective as we step outside of our own heads and let the surrounding light in. In a nutshell, we shouldn’t expect to finish the puzzle alone. Let others step in and help from time to time.
As we continue working through the puzzle, things really start to take shape. We’re starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. The pieces that sit attached and offer up their part of the image; Those represent our accomplishments and memories. They paint a picture of a life lived so far, as we steadily expand that picture. These times are littered with those searches for a “missing” piece, those tear downs and restarts as we find a piece that just didn’t belong there, and the support of those that love us and beyond. It’s a process, and there aren’t any shortcuts. Born of this are the virtues of patience, resilience, and perseverance as we build our lives, one piece at a time.
As the final pieces start to find their place in the puzzle, and these are typically the most difficult and mysterious of them all, we look back through the entire image, not only to celebrate our achievement, but to reflect on all that it took to put your puzzle together. The pain and the struggles, the easier times, and all of the people that helped create the life that sits before you. Each puzzle piece is unique, just as unique as one’s life compares to the next. The images we leave behind might sometimes look somewhat similar, but even two identical puzzles are never built the same way.
Our family, when we finish a puzzle, we leave it complete on the table for a bit, then take the pieces apart and put them back in the box. We then look for someone to give it to… someone to pass it onto as they start the process over, each piece offering its unique contribution to their life as they assemble the puzzle as they see fit. The same similarity happens as we mourn the loss of a loved one. We celebrate them and cherish the image that they left behind. We gaze bittersweetly upon the parts of the picture that we helped bring to life, while staring in awe at the most complex parts that one can only imagine how they were accomplished. Then, that legacy is passed onto the next generation as they build their puzzle as their own with a sense of gratitude for the ones that came before them, and a sense of responsibility for the puzzle that they’ll one day pass on.
Most importantly, don’t go through life thinking that your puzzle needs to be complete and perfect for the word to see. We’ve all got pieces strewn about the table as we work away, sorting them out and putting them into their rightful place. There are still those glimpses of beauty in the parts that you’ve already figured out, and there’s great admiration in your humility that shows that, just like everyone else, you’re a work in progress. Others will join you at the table to help you along the way, and you’ll offer the same on your end. Oh, and just in case you were wondering… The image that your puzzle creates? That’s completely up to you. Build the life that you want to see. It’s yours and yours alone, a masterpiece in the making.