the puzzle piece

credit this blog to a recent conversation between cuzn corey and myself, listening to too much john legend, and the coming of christmas - a season of warmth, love, candles, sweat, and kittens.

i have often viewed my life as a jigsaw puzzle. although, when things get rough, i think of it moreso as a tetris board, but thats another blog. but as a jigsaw puzzle, there are a number of tiny little cardboard pieces that fit with one another perfectly to create the image that is my existence on this earth. and individually, you can't make out what the hell it is. taken one facet at a time, one cannot depict the meaning of his or her own life. how? how can one define their life simply based on their job, or their hobby, or their family. no, each peice makes up the whole. each and every piece, significant or seemingly not, makes up a person as an individual. from how one ties their shoes, to how they cook their eggs. from the music they listen to, to how they prefer to have sex. everything makes us who we are. and until the day we die, we are simply adding more and more pieces to the puzzle.

when my younger brother and i were younger, we would love to do jigsaw puzzles. he was always better. we would split them up into different sections. the pieces that had one particular color were in one pile, while the other bunch might have the ones that had a mixture of colors. on bunch may be the ones with certain lighting a significant way, while another bunch may be the pile of end pieces. nevertheless, we created jigsaw puzzles from piles. and he would always finish his pile first, then come and help me with mine. i envied him for that. later in life, now in days, he still does jigsaw puzzles and does them damn well.
but i digress, the point i was trying to make was that many people have puzzle pieces put into bunches. puzzle bunches related to religion, money, family, romance, etc. but i think that there is one puzzle piece that is special. this puzzle piece is the one that is the most difficult to figure out. it's the puzzle piece that everyone tries to find in the bunch to match that other puzzle piece that is equally as difficult to figure out. is that a curve or a straight line? is that a corner or a curve? it doesn't matter the puzzle, pick any damn jigsaw puzzle. there are two pieces that no one can easily figure out. and very few people find them together. most will only know that they're are two weird pieces because they found the first one. and then, logically, if there is one really odd piece in the puzzle, there has to be another that fits with it.

often, we search for that puzzle piece in our lives. that piece that is equally as silly, or strict. that piece that is equally as forgetful, or just as organized. or we may believe in the complimentary piece. the piece that adds humor when everything else is so serious. the piece that brings color when everything is so bland. the piece that makes us smile when we don't want to, and cry when we thought everything was alright. we search and search for that piece. and some people, like corey and myself, may even disregard the rest of the puzzle looking for that piece. looking for the completion of that odd cut or curve.

and yet, sometimes we, as people, get too eager. we get too eager to find that unique piece so that we can focus on the rest of the puzzle. and then, we think we find it - all of a sudden, turned over and hidden under the box. the color is about the same as the first piece and the cut is just about right. if only we force it in and get that milliliter of space in there. if only we twist this edge and pull this spot back, the two pieces match! and then we think that it's not our fault we had to force it. the puzzle makers made a mistake. this is the one. this is the right piece. it has to be the right piece; there are no other pieces that it could possibly be! so it's left there, and then we're content enough to go back to the puzzle.

until the wrong piece that we put there shows up missing somewhere else.

all i'm saying is that life is a big puzzle laying in front of us to be put together. from the day we're born to the day we die. and if we spend the entire time looking for one puzzle piece, then we'll never get to finish the puzzle. life will have no image, no definition, no meaning. we have to work on our puzzle, in its entirety. and though it gets frustrating, it pays off. because when most of the pieces are together, and everything is in its proper bunch, and your younger brother is speeding through the rest of the puzzle - there, by itself, is a puzzle piece that is unique and beautiful, waiting to be put in the puzzle with the other piece just like it.