Do you remember when you were little,
how your parents would give you jigsaw puzzles just to occupy your time.
You'd open the box and it would smell like cardboard and paint and there would be dust sitting in the corners after you dumped all the pieces out.
I always started with the edges first.
Work along the outside and get a boarder, then fill it in.
But it seemed inevitable that at some point
You'd lose a piece
You would get to the end and search the whole house
Under pillows, under beds, in cabinets, everywhere
You couldn't find it
Eventually you'd give up and go eat dinner
But months later, it would turn up
In the same spot you know you had already looked
It would be there
Waiting for you
It's kind of funny really because now, years later, nothing's changed
You go to school and you're given a box
Filled with college applications and marriage and kids and adventures and getting arrested on that back road and falling in love with that person
You dump it all out and they give you until you graduate to sort it out
What do you want to be
Who do you want to be with
Where do you want to do it
Put it all together by the time you graduate
Get a plan
So you start with the edges
Graduate, go to this school and major in this degree
Move to this city, get this job, make this much money
But once you get the edges built you start filling it in
You fall in love with a boy who drinks too much and smokes unfiltered cigarettes
You sit on rooftops with him and you love him, God do you love him
Eventually you tell him you've got to finish the puzzle and you push him to the side
You fill in all the rest of the middle
Husband, kids, raises at work, vacations, red wine that you secretly hate, all of it
Eventually though you get to the end
The last piece
The piece that has happiness scribbled on the back in a blue ink pen
And you can't ******* find it
You look in your home and in your children and in your husbands wedding vows and it's just not there
Life goes on, you sleep in a different room and pretend to still be in love
For the kids sake of course
But one day you're going to be standing in a coffee shop
The same coffee shop you know you already looked in
And he's going to walk into you
Spill his drink down your blouse and murmur that he's still in love with you while you discuss the weather
You're going to find that puzzle piece
Just try to find it before you lose patience and cut something else to fit in its place.
C.a.l