I don’t have a “Big Picture” of where my life is going – no overall plan that says I have to be doing a certain thing by a certain time. I kind of just live day by day, picking up bits of this and that as I go along. What kind of bits? Puzzle bits. I think my life is like a Jigsaw Puzzle. It started with no pieces, and had no picture on the box lid. My job is to collect the pieces I either want or I am obliged to take, put them in as best I can, and see what picture emerges.
I don’t know how many pieces are in my puzzle. I think that depends on how long I live. The last piece will go in the moment before I die, I guess. I do know, though, that I look for a puzzle piece in everything I do and everyplace I go. I seldom know where the piece is going to fit in the puzzle, and it may just languish in the box for some time before I find a spot for it. But that is okay. I’m in no hurry to finish the puzzle.
Now and then I fit a piece into the puzzle and discover that the picture I thought I was working on has shifted somewhat. Sometimes it is a big shift caused by something like a death in the family, or relocating to a different country or having a sick child. Sometimes it is a small shift, like the discovery that I’m not going to have enough mushroom compost for all the flower beds. Sometimes it is a really small shift, like today when I recalibrated my monitor and all the colors moved a few shades south…
I don’t know what piece I’ll find tomorrow, or the day afterward. I don’t know exactly what my puzzle picture will look like a week or a month from now. What I do know is that I was pretty happy with it the way it looked last year, and I’m just as happy with it today. Hope you are too!
Hi Margie,
Life is definitely a puzzle, but I feel that is what makes it interesting, if it was all too predictable it would be boring. We need a challenge every now and then to keep us on our toes. 🙂
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Hi Magsx2, I agree with you that when life is too predictable, it is boring. Of course, these challenges often take us out of our comfort zone, and isn’t it exciting that this zone is different for each and every person!
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Love this! And since I love jigsaw puzzles, I can totally relate. Maybe by my age, the frame, the straight-edged pieces are pretty much in place. Who I am, my up-bringing, my character, are all there to hold my shape. But it’s the inside pieces that haven’t all been filled in. Wonderful metaphor!
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Hi CE, I like your idea about the straight edge pieces holding things in place. And I agree that as we get older this frame has been defined. The challenge for seniors is to work on some of the inside bits and make them different than the sections they have done before!
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It gets harder the older we get, but knowing time is not on our side can free us up to take some chances, doesn’t it? Well, it can if we let it!
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Hi CE. I prefer to ignore the concept of how much time I have left, and concentrate on the day at hand: http://gogreygirl.wordpress.com/2011/04/19/fear-of-the-future/
But I agree that the inclination to take some chances and try new things is a great way to experience seniordom!
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