Living Outside The Lines: Puzzle Pieces

Nothing about me is what I would deem “the norm.” My hair is curly while much of the population’s is straight. The shape of my body differs greatly from the women I see splashed across magazine covers.

by, Becky J Miller

Have you ever tried to work a jigsaw puzzle, one of the big ones, with 1000 plus pieces?

Ever gotten frustrated trying to make one of those pieces fit into a slot it was not intended to fit in? We’ve all done it, turned the piece left, right, upside down, but no matter, it just won’t fit. And though we know it won’t fit, we just keep trying to make it fit. Why is that? Why do we frustrate ourselves so?

Life is a lot like a jigsaw puzzle, a picturesque landscape that we are all a part of. Each of us is a unique piece, designed to fit in a specific place. Corner pieces don’t fit in the middle; they weren’t created that way. If everyone was a corner piece, the puzzle would be incomplete, it’s center missing. With only a center and no border, what holds the puzzle together?

Sometimes I look around at other puzzle pieces and wonder why I can’t be more like them. How come my life sometimes seems so out of sync with the norm? With my 50th birthday looming just over the horizon, it does not seem unreasonable to expect I would’ve settled into my niche’ by now and yet here I am, abounding in the unreasonable.

Nothing about me is what I would deem “the norm.” My hair is curly while much of the population’s is straight. The shape of my body differs greatly from the women I see splashed across magazine covers. I married at eighteen while most of my peers waited until their mid to late twenties. College, well, I finally finished, but not until just a few years ago. Career, what is that? I just started a new job while many of my high school friends are already enjoying retirement.

I am a grown woman who loves dolls, the evidence of which is visible in both my personal abode and my office space. Social functions make me uncomfortable; I’ve no clue how to work a room. My husband and I did not purchase our first home until our oldest son was a senior in high school & ten short years later we are preparing to sell it. Seeing a pattern here?

So which puzzle piece am I? Oh wait, I know this one!! I am the one that is oddly shaped, the one that seems to fit nowhere, the one that is so different from the others and yet would leave a gaping hole in the finished product were it to go missing.

Many tears have been shed in frustration over not being a border piece. There seem to be a lot of pieces that make up the border, pieces that are similar in design and structure. But, I’m not meant to be a border piece. I was not created to be like the other puzzle pieces. I am unique, created with a different purpose. There is no other piece like me. And, even in my discomfort, I am okay with that, well, most days I am.

No doubt, there will always be days that I feel like pimento-less olive in a jar full of stuffed olives but hey; I’m still an olive, right?

Until Next Time,

Becky ~ Warrior Princess 

Becky J Miller is a contributor and is exclusive to SM Corridor News. You can read more of Becky’s columns in Lifestyle.