SquarePeg Books

Sometimes I piddle around on a horoscope site. Not because I firmly believe my fate is aligned with Jupiter and which house it’s currently in, but because sometimes the opening line makes me stop and think for a moment.

This one caught me a few weeks ago, because it feels like I’ve been trying to build myself from scratch for 30 years. It’s almost like a puzzle my parents gave me in middle school, part of the World’s Most Difficult Jigsaw Puzzle series. They got me what I would call the easiest one, with a unicorn on it. The one with the penguins I would say is the hardest.

What makes it the “world’s most difficult” is that the picture is printed on both sides, turned at a 90degree angle from the other side.

I struggled with putting it together, then having to tear it apart because I’d selected the wrong side piece to put in place, figure it out again, tear it apart again because I used a different wrong side piece 50 pieces ago, and on and on and on for more than a year. I think I solved it, but it turned out I was missing a piece or two to finish it. Maybe the dog ate them. Wrinkles was an odd dog.

I’ve been working on the “Me” puzzle for at least 30 years, I keep solving one section, only to find out that it doesn’t fit the rest I’ve already put together, meaning I have to tear it apart to figure out how to fit everything in. There are definitely some pieces missing, and unlike every other puzzle I’ve ever solved, I have no idea what this damned thing is supposed to look like, because the box doesn’t have a picture.

I know what I want it to look like, but it never quite seems to turn out that way. There’s always a misfit piece 50 pieces back or so, that has to be turned or flipped. I’m pretty sure some sadist dumped a few extra pieces in that have absolutely nothing to do with the final picture, And there don’t seem to be any edges and corner pieces, because reasons.

Specialist puzzle building coaches have helped occasionally, but then one piece gets placed wrong, and the whole thing has to be torn down again.

I’m supposed to meet with another puzzle building coach before the end of the year. I’m hoping they can show me how some of the sections fit together in this new configuration, or if the real problem is that twisted another piece around into the wrong place and just not grokking it right.

I dunno. Maybe I should do a weekly accountability vlog or something. I don’t know.

I do know I’m not moving in a forward direction like I want to, and it’s irritating.

What do you do to figure out how the pieces fit?