I wonder what the thought process of the artist of the puzzle I did today was in its creation; “Polar bears in the snow… genius!” Some kind family member probably got the courage up to save the puzzling world from pure agony and kindly hinted that perhaps they put some clothes on the polar bears, or maybe something in the snow. “Oh, great, like speckles? That will make it artistic and fancy. Great idea, thanks Gertrude. I’ll name a polar bear after you. That one in the middle. We don’t want to make it too easy, though, because these puzzlers like a challenge, you know, so I’m going to make this picture star shaped; oh, and I’ll make the edges of the actual puzzle different than the edges of the box. They’ll love that.”
Well thanks for your efforts, Gertrude, but it was still pure torture. I know because yesterday was better than putting that puzzle together today, at least in the middle part. And yesterday was an epically bad day at work, in addition to following weeks of building stress and exhaustion from the busiest time of year in retail, a week with a cold, and three weeks after a surgery I’m supposed to be recovering from. Perhaps I subconsciously thought it would make me more grateful for my awful time at work through the excruciating process of putting white piece after white piece next to each other to see if that one fit, or that one, or that one….
Well it worked, I suppose. Piece after piece, I kept mulling over all the stuff that happened yesterday and how it’s going to affect the future, and every bloody white piece that didn’t fit I thought, “how cheesy and ironic, that this trial of spotted snow/polar bear pieces – my chosen activity of the day – is like those times in life when nothing can go right.”
True, isn’t it? We all work our little butts off to do the right thing and make a good living, and how much of that time are we just trying every single somewhat-distinctly correct looking piece of life to make it all work together? I mean, every single one. every.single.one. And then when we do find that perfect piece sometimes there’s no question about it but sometimes it doesn’t look at all like we thought it would, so we second guess our decision, putting it aside to make sure it’s the right one by trying all the other possibilities first.
But oh the elation to get to the last few pieces, that you know must go SOMEwhere, and the likelihood of getting to put a whole bunch of correct pieces down in a row – well just the thought causes a whole bunch of mini-celebrations. This is the point when you as a puzzler might look like a crazed, wild animal upon the discovery of a winter’s supply of food; eyes wide open as eyes, head, body and hands dart back and forth with your last ten pieces, putting them in place with a double finger tap for finality and a ridiculous grin across your face.
Well, of all the analogies that are overused, there might be some better ones I could have applied to my situation right now. Running a long race, or any sport analogy for that matter all bring out similar points of perseverance and keeping on keeping on. But there’s some value to this somewhat boring analogy, and it appeals to those who are not athletically gifted like myself.
Firstly, the most satisfying puzzles to complete are almost always pictures of something beautiful. I suppose you might be able to argue the sports analogy side and say that if you are a good athlete you’ll end up a beautiful person, but we all know that that’s a petty and depressing way of looking at life. What if life was really made up of all those times that you painstakingly tried every piece to fit into this one area of life, so that when you finally came across that plain-as-day piece that looked like every other one, you rejoiced? If each piece had that significance, frustrating though it may have been, how much more special would your trials be to you once you realized how beautiful the final picture was?
Because, secondly and more importantly, every piece in the box goes somewhere. Every. Single. One. I might want to forget yesterday or the fight I had with my husband this week, or the time I had to do this or that or the other thing that seemed really bad, but those experiences are a part of life and they came in my box, and they make up my puzzle. My beautiful puzzle.
Any maybe we have more than one puzzle. Or our lives are actually crazier than we realize and we’re filling out 10 puzzles at once. In any case, despite my imperfect analogy, I suppose I feel better about my bad experiences lately. At least I’m not putting that puzzle together.
