The 550-Piece Puzzle
#195
Friend,
Imagine you have a 550-piece puzzle to complete.
Normally, you would clear the table, dump all the pieces out, put up your reference image, start organizing the pieces, and connect the puzzle.
But this puzzle doesn’t work like that.
Instead of the pieces coming in a box, the pieces are scattered and seem to appear at random.
Instead of having a reference image, you are putting these pieces in blindly; you don’t know what you are making.
Instead of organizing the pieces, every once in a while, the pieces get disorganized for no particular reason.
This puzzle is grief.
When you are experiencing grief, the pieces of your new world get scattered across your old world. You find pieces of your grief and your possibilities everywhere. Pick them up, look at them, name them, and you’ll find a place for them.
When you are experiencing grief, you don’t know what your new normal will look like. You don’t have a reference image for the unknown future. That’s ok. Let the pieces of grief and the pieces of your possibilities make something new and beautiful. You can’t create an old picture, only something new.
When you are experiencing grief, expect turmoil. Expect overwhelming days. Expect the painful evidence of grief to disorder your reality every once in a while. Let the dis-membering of your organization be an opportunity to re-member the pieces of your grief and possibilities.
And do you know what makes any puzzle better?
Having someone to help you put it together. Invite someone to help you, and don’t be surprised when they start connecting pieces that you had been staring at for hours.
Love,
Aaron
Yes…