Puzzle Pieces: Make Me Fit

For most of my life I felt out of place. Like a piece of the puzzle that didn’t fit… and I wanted so bad to fit somewhere, anywhere. I wanted to belong to the beautiful picture that I believed was on the cover of the box of this roller coaster called life.

I felt so close, so many times, like I almost fit. It didn’t matter to me that it wasn’t a perfect fit. It didn’t matter to me that the picture wasn’t perfect. I would force my piece of the puzzle into the pieces around me. The part of the picture I had on my piece fit in close enough with the whole thing that it worked for awhile. I stayed connected to other pieces of the puzzle that weren’t a perfect fit for too long far too often in my life.

Eventually the pressure of being in the wrong place, trying to fit in where I didn’t belong, having the edges of my puzzle piece constantly rubbed the wrong way, effected my mental health. It forced me to make choices that impacted my life. I had to decide what was more important, keeping up a façade of fitting in, which must have been rubbing other people’s edges wrong too, or getting out of that place and finding a place where I truly fit; without rubbing my edges, or anyone else’s, wrong.

There have been a few places and a few people as I have gotten older where I feel like I fit perfectly. When you look at this picture, you can see that the edges fit snugly, with no pressure points. When you find the right people to be with, there won’t be pressure points.

I’m not saying that there will never be disagreements with people that you fit with, there may be, but the discussion or argument will still be respectful. Just because people fit, doesn’t mean they’re exactly the same. It just means that they images on their puzzle pieces work together to make the same big picture.

My puzzle is still incomplete. I haven’t found everybody who fits in my puzzle perfectly. I’m being more careful about it though because I don’t want to ruin the edges of my puzzle piece, or theirs’. In the end I want mine and everyone in my life to have perfect puzzle pieces to create a beautiful image for our life.

I may be getting a late start on it, but hey… better late than never.