Peices of the Puzzle

It seems to me that relationships are a lot like putting together a puzzle.

My grandmother taught me to always put together the frame first. It's a solid foundation to build on and where all the fun stuff connects. Without the frame peices, you really have no support and you start to build of off random peices of nothing that don't make sense yet.

Once the frame is established you start to fill in the middle area. There are many different peices. Sometimes you come across a peice or entire section that fits effortlessly and blends in beautifully with the picture. You don't have to rearrange or spend a lot of time and effort making these peices fit. The connection is simple.

Then you come across a peice that doesn't fit no matter how hard you try to jam it in. You spend tons of time and effort, short of super gluing the peice in. You are positive it will just fit with a bit more manual manipulation. Sometimes you have to walk away for a bit, and when you come back, you realize all you had to do was turn it the other way and it fits perfectly. Sometimes you have to laugh at yourself when you realize this peice got mixed up from another puzzle box, and needs to go back to where it came from because it doesn't fit with the puzzle you are currently working on.

A lot of times, peices come damaged. The coating is torn off, the edge is broken. You think, if only this peice wasn't broken it would fit perfectly. With tender loving care, the peice can usually be worked into the whole puzzle. Sometimes it may have to go through an entire new process of renewal before it will fit. But the beautiful thing is that a space is saved for this peice, because only that specific peice will fit in the spot intended for it.

A lot of times peices go MIA. It's almost unexplainable. Maybe it was dropped on the floor or maybe it just hightailed it out of there in your dog's mouth or something. Anyway, no matter how hard we want the puzzle to be complete, without this peice, we feel an abscense. It's impossible to find another peice that fits, unless you handcraft a new one. Most of the time, the missing peices will turn up again. Maybe it's a year later in a couch cushion, or you just randomly come across it on the kitchen floor. A lot of times the peices are returned to you worse for the ware, because they've been stepped on, abused and out of sorts. That's because the peice was everywhere but where it truly needed to be: in the puzzle. But like the damaged peices, there is a space where it belongs and always will.

Relationships are like building a puzzle. Without all the people in your life that you need, it is incomplete. You can try and try to fit other peices into it, but the peices that truly belong will find the way back to the space that they need to be in. Trust that. I do.