The Pieces are Finally Fitting Together

Another year older and another year wiser. 
   I've heard the phrase my whole life, although I remember it best from the Rugrats All Grown Up! theme song. That is one of those silly things that has stayed with me far past it's expected expiration date, sorta like how I remember how to get to Dragon Land a little too well...

    Anyway, as this year of life comes to a close, I thought I'd share a little bit of the wisdom that I've learned during it. This post is for you, you middle-schooler trying to fit in. It's for you, you high school senior wondering what the future looks like. It's for you, you college student wondering when life will really start. It's for me, because I was and am, searching for me.

    Middle school was awkward. That's a given. Then there's high school, which is just weird. Then there's college, which is just hard. I always just counted down from one to another. I couldn't wait until REAL LIFE started, you know the one where I am finally handed this 3,000 page volume that tells me exactly who I am, how I fit into this world and where I'm going. I expected life to be like a book, but instead, I got handed a puzzle, one of those ridiculous ones where all of the pieces are the same shape and there is no picture on the front cover.

  You see, that picture is in the pieces the whole time. Maybe it's some beautiful mountain landscape, sprinkled with trees turning the red, orange, and yellow that only fall can bring. Or, maybe it's a tall palm tree, bent in just the right place to allow the leaves to gently kiss the water as the breeze blows through. You don't know what exactly it will look like, but you know it'll be great.

    But it takes work. No amount of staring at the box will cause the image to appear: you have to take all of the pieces out and get to work. You might start with the border, then start piecing together the large pictures. Slowly, overtime the pieces are filled in. All along the picture is there, but you just have to find it.

My pains, triumphs, lessons, journeys, and all of the items from my past are sitting unassembled in the box called my life. Thrown in is a wide variety of pieces that I can only imagine; those make up my future. This box is full of the pieces that will shape who I will become. For years I stared at the puzzle, hoping that someday it would just be put together. I wanted to just be so sure of my life, you know skip past the heartbreaks, missteps and mistakes. I wanted to wake up one day and say, "Wow, would you look at that! Over night everything fell into place and now I see my life exactly how it should be." The night never came, and I figured that that I should probably take another look at that stupid puzzle box just glaring at me.

I'm so glad that I finally threw all of the pieces of my life out on the table before me and started sorting through them. 

   I started with the borders, you know the things about me I'm pretty sure of, my faith and my academics. Over the past few years I've pieced together the family part of my puzzle, and college has helped me work on the career portion. This year I had to do a little reworking on the friends section, because sometimes what you think is a good fit, isn't really the BEST fit. I've had a couple of people come into my life who were able to give a little insight, but for the most part, this is a puzzle that I'll have to do on my own.

So what does this mean for you? Well, I know someone, somewhere is reading this, who just feels lost. They thought they finally had their life together, only to realize it was not what it appeared. They were so sure of who they were, until they were rocked to their core. Whatever stage you're at, let me just say this, clearly you aren't supposed to know who you are just yet! The day will come when things become more clear, but only after a little work, some heartbreaks and more than your fair share of mistakes.

So stop cheating off of the puzzles of the people who you think your life is supposed to look like. Stop trying to let someone else be the one that completes your puzzle. Stop cheating. That will get you no where, TRUST ME. Simply look at the task before you. Work with your pieces. It'll seem to be at a stand still. That's when you stop the task before you and do something else. Then come back, you'll have a little bit more of direction.

Make that puzzle. Live your life. Piece together who you are. You can't go wrong. You can't possibly mess up the puzzle so poorly that it becomes unrecognizable, well unless of course:

You never try to put the pieces together.

P.S You know the best part about the puzzle? I for sure get to put in the last piece.