A Million Pieces

My mom and I once got a 5000 piece puzzle of .... I think it was flowers but maybe a landscape scene.  We attempted to put it together in the dinning room (which was only used for crazy and long-term projects).  My mother, who was always teaching me some useful skill, taught me the "art" of puzzling.  Yes, I said, "art".  "Find the corners, then the edges, then put colors that match together".  For an 8 year old, this seemed like the most unfeasible of tasks.  I remember bending so far down to look at the pieces that I felt like the Hunch Back of Notre Dame.  I worked on that puzzle for hours, days, what seemed like months but was probably just a couple weeks.  I felt frustrated at times and ecstatic at others.  There were moments I swore I lost a piece, and moments I figured we would never finish.  My mom, amidst cooking dinners and cleaning, would pop in with a word of encouragement.  She always managed to take the pile of matching colors and quickly assemble them into larger units.  Bit by bit and day by day, we some how finished that puzzle.  I remember trying to figure out why people enjoy these types of games...

Lately, life has felt like my days are spent trying to master the mega-puzzle.  There are so many pieces and ideas that are needed to be put in order or to be put it together.  My family has their suggestions about how I can be most effective, but there are just moments when I am overwhelmed of all of those millions of pieces that need to come together.  In any given day, I am trying to plan some aspect of a wedding, learn a multifaceted computer billing and medical notation system, work with clients, start two schools programs up, work out, shower, clean my room, do some laundry, keep my car clean, eat healthy.... you get the picture.  My to do list, which now just has to get redone every couple of days, just seems like all of those pieces still left on the side of the table with no place to go.

I am not sure why but sometimes I feel like I set myself up to try and take on the world.  With determination, I often stare at all there is to do and try to figure out the best course of action ("corners, edges, then group").  The corners seem to be: work, Chris, family, and finances.  The edges: faith, friends, working out, diet, wedding.  The groups: keeping things clean, moving, packing, setting up my office, laundry, and everything else.  And while a puzzle's pieces remain fixed once you figure them out, my life is like a puzzle that is in constant threat of falling apart.

The million pieces will soon be but a memory as I will some how master this system at work, I will get married, we will move, and my life will have a sense of normalcy once again.  Until then, I realize I have to figure out a way to give myself permission to put the puzzle up at the end of the day and just relax.  Tonight my mother said, "Rome wasn't built in a day"... my response, "well, it should have been".  Sometimes I wish I could snap my fingers and everything would be where it should be.  Picture Mary Poppins teaching Jane and Michael to snap their fingers and toys go back on the shelves....  However, I know there is something to be said about the process, the journey, the race... whatever you call it.  This puzzle making process of understanding life and living... it is suppose to be that frustrating but exhilarating experience like the puzzle.  I guess today is just one of those moments where my neck hurts, my eyes are tired, and I need to go off and do something else.

“Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb." -- Winston Churchill