It's difficult for me to control...and I haven't really found a support group that can help me out. I've dealt with this problem since I was little...I mean, really young...
it's...it's hard for me to think about...but I can assure you that I don't ever intend to quit!
Still, I feel I need to talk to you...if for no other reason than to perhaps understand myself better.
My obsession is this:
jigsaw puzzles
Yeah, you read that right. Jigsaw puzzles. Just typing those two words makes me a little giddy...a little light-headed...whoa.
I.love.jigsaw.puzzles.
I do. I began putting the pieces into place at an early age and the staying power it has for mezmerizing me is astounding. I love easy ones...3D ones...I'll do a puzzle with someone or by myself. I love them.
Had a Yogi Bear puzzle as a kid. A hamburger puzzle as a teen. I just completed a rooster puzzle at Mom's the other day. And I know there are more jigsaws in my future.
There has to be!
Here's the deal: I can't NOT attempt to put pieces in place if there's a puzzle anywhere about. The Cancer Center where Mom has a doc that she sees once in a while has a table set up with a jigsaw. Just the other day we were there...and as soon as the nurse led Mom back for her appt., I was planted in a chair at that table, eagerly picking up pieces and figuring out where they go.
I love puzzles. I love how the pieces feel in my hand. I relish the satisfying 'snick' when a piece is put into it's proper place. I enjoy sorting the outside pieces from the inside pieces.
I can sit at a table, doing a puzzle, and lose track of time. Easily. I'm not kidding. I literally lost track of time in 1979 because I was working on a puzzle of Rip Van Winkle. Began it on Monday the 20th and when I finished it, the newspaper told me it was 1984.
You see, when I get really involved with a puzzle...nothing else matters. It's me...and the pieces...and the big picture of the finished puzzle. And this overpowering urge to complete it...
Oh, sometimes it's not all fun. Sometimes my brow furrows...when I think I've got a piece in the right place...but the fit isn't right. No worries, though. The challenge continues. And the challenge helps make it fun.
When I was about 11 years old, I had a Shaun Cassidy jigsaw puzzle. And I would put that thing together and take it apart and put it together and take it apart...and I got to this place in my mind where I began timing myself...to see how long it took me to complete that picture. To finish the puzzle.
I think my fastest time was like, 7 minutes. I wrote a letter to Shaun telling him of my victory and he wrote a song about it.
Well, he should've written a song. Because I felt it was quite an accomplishment.
Jigsaw puzzles, for me, are about a variety of things. They're about creativity, and concentration, and control. Eye candy...especially the really tough ones that use similiar colors and items like flowers or cars or water...to make your mind work even harder.
They satisfy the Monk in me by giving me a false sense of control. Of giving me the ability to sort...and categorize...and determine what happens next. Do I complete the sky? Or do I work on the log cabin? Ah Ha Ha....I rub my hands together and feel a little like Frankenstein's creator...striving to finish my creation.
Told you I had a problem with puzzles. :)
Here's my pondering for today:
Sometimes I think we're all pieces in this big ol' jigsaw puzzle. And Someone is placing us in our proper place. To complete this beautiful picture.
Here's the other thing about jigsaw puzzles. There is nothing more depressing...or maddening...or disappointing...than realizing that there is a piece that's missing.
You, my friend, are a very important piece of the puzzle. You're just as necessary as a corner piece...or the cat's eye...or the wheel on the wagon. The big picture needs you.
I need you. As puzzling as that may seem...
3 comments:
I had the same Shaun Cassiday puzzle!!
I think I get hung up on trying to be the puzzle-solver myself -- thinking I know where the pieces fit and trying to put them where I want them to go.
I don't want to diminish this though: sometimes a person or people are very good at figuring out where other "pieces" fit. And other times, they have a higher opinion of their own puzzle-solving abilities than they should.
I spend a lot of my time trying to figure out why other people don't look at the same puzzle I look at and don't see the simple solution that I see.
DMc
Correction of the last paragraph from above:
I spend a lot of my time trying to figure out why other people look at the same puzzle I look at . . . and don't see the simple solution that I see.
DMc
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