Life Lessons Learned: Putting the Pieces Together

It began in 2018. While on vacation thousands of miles from home in New Zealand, I tripped on a hiking trail and fractured my tibia and fibula requiring surgery to install plates and rods etc. put in place like scaffolding holding up a building under construction. The cast required six weeks non-weight bearing.

After a month of New Zealand’s’ very generous hospital care — free of charge! — I needed more time before I could manage flying home, alone. Wellington seemed to have no in-patient rehabilitation facilities like we have state-side so in found a nursing home to remain in until I went from cast to boot and learned to manage crutches and a walker.

It was there I was reintroduced to a childhood pastime — jigsaw puzzles. I found them challenging, compelling and their completion was filled with the satisfaction of accomplishment. When I got home, I discovered online jigsaw puzzles and when the pandemic hit, my enjoyment became a pleasant “addiction.”

I find solving puzzles calming and meditative.

What Solving Puzzles Taught Me

• I learned the many varied shades of sky-blue-pink and clouds and the colors of lakes and rivers and waterfalls. The green of grass versus the green of trees. So many intricate shades and variations that change depending on how the sun — or moon-light is hitting them.
• Many things are not at all what they seem to be. I’d see a piece that I swear was part of arosebush — same colors and even a shape that appeared to fit…but then, NO. Another piece I was certain was the woman’s eyes, turned out to be something else entirely. What appeared to be a window turned out to be a door. Many analogies can be learned.

- You cannot force things to fit where they don’t. No amount of trying or forcing can change that.

• I recognized the value of seeing the whole picture. Being too intensely myopically, micro-focused on just one piece or section at a time is not always beneficial without an overall perspective.
• I learned patience. Everything in its time. Sometimes I’d be floored that a piece I was absolutely positively convinced was part of a structure or flora, puppy, car, plane or person . . . wasn’t at all what I thought it to be. I’d put it aside and find other pieces that fit where I was sure that one belonged. And then, like magic, the piece, I initially believed belonged — DID! It just needed another piece to go before it. Everything belongs somewhere.

And the biggest lessens of all:

• Every individual piece, no matter the color or size — each and every one — is vitally important because each one is crucial to create the whole picture and without any single one it can never be complete.
• If something that seems right right now, but isn’t, it might be after some other pieces fall into place.

Yet, while everything has it’s rightful place, it also has a right time to fit in. Many things cannot be rushed — or pushed. They require us to wait for things to fall into place in the proper order. First things first.

This insight dovetailed very well on my recent visit to the dentist. I was being checked out by two young staff members who had to arrange referrals to an oral surgeon and a prosthodontist. I began bemoaning the fact that my aging teeth are breaking and needed extractions, etc. and how everything starts to break down with old age. I caught myself from sharing the” woe is me” and “aging aint for sissies” . . . or the very bad advice: “Don’t get old.”

Instead, I suggested these two yougins have all the fun they can! Now they were smiling and I was feeling pretty darn cheerful. Then I topped it off with some Dr. Ruth wisdom and suggested they have all the sex they can, but mostly have FUN!

Life is sometimes puzzling. The solution is that everything has a time and a place and youth is the time for doing fun things so you can build up a storehouse of happy memories and never wish you “could have” or “should have.” Just do it!