Jigsaw puzzles have been an obsession of mine since I was little. I remember my first puzzle: a snowy setting with a penguin in the center, the pieces huge enough for a child to piece together. My older sister taught me the technique. Edges first, then the inside pieces. I watched as she magically linked piece after piece and created this bigger picture. Every since that moment, I have been fascinated by jigsaw puzzles and try to get my hands on as many as possible. Over the years, especially after spending long summers at my grandparents house, I have accumulated over fifty puzzles, preserved with glue and stored away in piles in my basement. I never really understood why I loved it so much. It was so simple. Find a piece, study the shape, study the color, and find another that compliments that color and shape. It's like finding two halves of a whole. With each success in putting the pieces together, I felt my enthusiasm grow and my satisfaction deepen. I had done something special, I had completed something that was broken and the result is beautiful. As the symptoms to my mental illness became prominent with age, I began to understand the need for my puzzles. With racing thoughts that always tended to spiral south into a hidden compartment inside of myself filled with despair, focusing my attention on the unique shapes and edges, the vibrant colors and designs that each piece holds, allowed me to channel my obsessive thoughts into something productive. When a puzzle lies before me, the only thing that truly matters to me, the only thing I can really focus on is fitting the pieces together, to complete the whole picture. When I am working on a puzzle, the only thing I am aware of is myself, my inner thoughts, and the task before me.
Doing a puzzle isn't just about getting the job done for me. It's more than that. Though the ending is beautiful, the journey is fun as well. I have no idea why but for some reason, finding a single piece out of a box of a thousand others just like it, and matching it with another, makes me feel important. It makes me feel like I have talent, like I can solve things for once. Though life is hard and messy and decisions are not easily made and questions are not easily answered, putting together a puzzle is simple. The pieces fit perfectly and they each have one match. It is organized and easy to attain. I guess I enjoy the simplicity of it through the difficulties of my life. It helps me enjoy the little things, the simple and easy things in life. It helps me understand that small accomplishments can lead to bigger ones, just as each small piece put together will make a larger image. Most importantly, as I try to evaluate which way I should turn a piece to make it fit or which section of the puzzle the piece belongs to, I can try and solve my own life problems, almost as if a puzzle's resolve is reciprocated in real life. Because I have so much time to think and my mind is fully concentrated on what I am doing, my mind will roam and allow me just enough space to daydream and go over the things that upset me in a non-obsessive, overbearing kind of way. As a result, with each piece I correctly place, it's as if my negative thoughts are solved and put away with the puzzle and it is for that reason that jigsaw puzzles will always be more to me than just a fun past-time. They are my therapy.
