Jazz

Ah, I stare at the blank box awaiting me to fill it with my ridiculous thoughts. It has been a while since I've posted on this - I'm not really sure why - I guess more internal soul searching has occurred in the last year and a half and I still don't know what to make of it.

I learned I don't like jigsaw puzzles. My dad loves to do them. I get that it's relaxing and it makes a pretty picture at the end because you found all the pieces that fit together - but I never really understood what you got out of it after all that work. Life is often compared to a jigsaw puzzle and making all the pieces fit. I want my pieces to do more than just to "fit" - I want them to be chosen deliberately, so I can live the life I chose, rather than the life that chose me. (That is a straight reference to a song by Jay Z)

Now, the ability to pick and choose your pieces the way you want them is a major privilege, not a given. Which I think is something we all tend to acknowledge and then forget, never realize at all. That is an extremely difficult concept to accept. One of my favorite quotes is: "The biggest lie I've contended with is this, Life is a story about me". I have to remind myself of that everyday, often, several times. All the pieces of my puzzle are just one piece of a much bigger puzzle that I don't even understand.

Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. day. The company I work for gave us the option to volunteer at a senior citizens home for the day, which was awesome. I used to volunteer at a senior citizen home when I was 13 - and I'd giggle with my friends about the residents, which is horrible but it's what kids do. Since then, my father has been diagnosed with Alzheimers. The experience I had Monday was much different than when I was 13. It was so humbling, for a lot of reasons. One being, someday it's going to be my ass in one of those homes. The prominent reason being that now this is real to me in another way, they didn't choose this, this is a piece of the puzzle that they probably wouldn't have chosen but it's the one that fits. Now, seeing both sides of the coin, I see that there are different types of puzzle pieces, ones that just fit, and ones you specifically chose. There are several pieces that I know my father deliberately picked, and on the flip, a few others that I know just were the ones that fit at the time. I like to think the folks in those homes had pieces they chose at another stage of their life.

Looking at how my puzzle has formulated over the years, there are probably a few pieces that just fit - that I wouldn't have chose. But lately, I've had the opportunity to really live life deliberately, and choose what pieces I want. And it's so awesome and freeing. At the same time, I'm learning (like most things) that life is cyclical (I had an insane History prof in college that preached this everyday after his morning shot of Grey Goose), and these different types of pieces are going to come along. I think if life were a painting, it would be a Mosaic.