Piecing it Together with Love
I never liked to put together jigsaw puzzles as a child. They were time consuming and required a lot of effort. There was also the likelihood that they would end up remaining incomplete because a piece or two were missing.
Now that I am an adult, the metaphor of puzzle pieces seems to fit in perfectly with life. There are experiences and moments and people. We pick them up piece by piece moving towards a picture, that will one day represent all our life. Perhaps the most wonderful thing about this puzzle is that it will never remain incomplete. It is in our destiny to find all the parts that will help us make our lives.
The challenge, however, still lies in the effort. There is no destiny without effort.
The way we endeavour with our puzzle; with the experiences and moments and people, will lend a definite colour to the final picture. I am clear on the colour of my picture. It must end up with a decided shade of love.
My pieces so far definitely have vestiges of love, either in the way the piece shapes around other pieces or in the tiny picture that is the piece itself. They are a variety and have been a joy to fit in. Allow me to walk you through some of the loves that have defined my life so far:
- La familia: I have my parents and my brother; and in my jigsaw, they occupy massive chunks that are all made up and out of love. I would need to write something the length of a PhD research paper to talk about the love and care that I have received from my family. Suffice it to say that their love carries its influence on me on a phenomenal level. It pushes me to be more responsible and to maintain honesty at all costs. To be kind and pass around, in small ways and big, that which I have received from my family unconditionally.
- Higher Superpower: I firmly, unequivocally believe that there is a God that loves us all. I have found His love manifest in the million and one blessings that come my way every day. And on all the days that I have found things to be utterly out of my control, I’ve reached out to this Higher Superpower and things have righted themselves in no time and in a manner that I could never have dreamed of.
- Friend indeed: Shout out to all the wonderful humans who bear with me even though they don’t have to. The crazy and the not-so-crazy! What are the traits of their love? There’s the one who has promised to be my best friend forever and tells me she loves me ever so often. Then there’s the one who was a silent support, when it seemed like I had none. There’s also the one who, despite her impatience, worked with me on all our assignments until the perfectionist in me was ready to declare that things were just right. There’s one who’s made me breakfast in bed whenever I have visited her place. And to say nothing of my childhood friends, our number of years are testimony enough.
- Pet story: I often reiterate the idea to my mother that pets are a living, breathing excuse of a soft toy for adults. Why I like to say this is because I love to cuddle and hold and hug and call my cat all kinds of names. Sure, he’s lazy and prefers to stay outside of the house most of the day, so that he can avoid this excessive dosage of love. But I also know that somewhere underneath all that fur he loves me a little, because he lets me put him through his least favourite stuff on a daily basis.
- Read-along: How can one not fall in love with the written word and a beautiful story? Words and stories that carry the power of making you feel every emotion, even those that you may never have felt in real life. They have the power to represent lives and carry moments, and subsequently hand that power to the readers. Give me a good book and I am taken.
- Throw a little love your own way: Oh yes, I love myself! And why must I not?
While fixing life and putting its pieces together it is easy to forget to love one’s self. And if every time you bungle up and love yourself a little less for it, the whole exercise has lost its meaning. Love yourself, put in the pieces with love and the right shade of love will absolutely shine through.
