Usually I do one or two jigsaw puzzles over winter break, more than that over the summer, and maybe one during spring break. Once in awhile I’ll do one over a long weekend. (I did many during the initial Covid lockdown.) One reason I don’t do them more often is because our house only has one good puzzle-doing surface - the dining room table. And although we don’t all eat together at the dining room table all that often, I like having that as an option, at least. So I don’t do puzzles very often.
This year I got a puzzle for Christmas, as I often do, but I didn’t make time to put it together before school started. Last Sunday (the day before school started for me & the other teachers, but two days before the students would return) I decided to break my own usual rule, and I started the puzzle that Annabel had given me for Christmas. It’s called “Summer Fun,” and it’s much wider than it is tall, and the picture on it is a beach scene. There are lots of parasails and boats, and there is a lot of sand and sky and water and a boardwalk in the foreground. There are a lot of beach goers of various ages of various sizes and shapes and colors, some bicycles and strollers and food carts and beach umbrellas and dogs and scooters and dune buggies. And more! It’s the kind of puzzle I enjoy doing, because all of the background is so full of little things that you don’t have to spend a lot of time trying piece after piece and piece in one vast unvaried section of the puzzle after you’ve matched all of the pieces that having easily identifiable - although perhaps tiny! - differences.
It’s now Saturday, and I still have a ways to go before the puzzle will be done, but I’ve made a lot of progress. I’ve hit that point where, whenever I sit down for a few minutes, I see quite a few new matches without even trying. It’s probably the point in the puzzle that I enjoy most, because it gives me what I guess I am looking for when I do puzzles: challenging questions, that require me to struggle enough to feel like I’m exercising my eyes and my mind, but for which there are certain unequivocal correct answers that are extremely gratifying to discover. Sometimes when I’m doing puzzles, I say “bam!” when I snap each piece into place, especially when I’m approaching the end stages of a puzzle. (I’m pretty sure my dad’s the one who started doing this one year when we were doing puzzles during our week at Potato Creek State Park, but the rest of us were quick to pick up on it.)
I am 51 years old, and I am a fourth year middle school teacher. I was a theatre major in college, then started a masters in theatre program, temped for awhile while I applied to law schools, then attended law school, then worked for 11 years as a lawyer, first at a law firm and then at a title insurance company in their claims department. I had gone to law school basically because I loved being in school and didn’t know what I wanted to do. But I never loved being a lawyer, so when I was laid off in 2009, I actively looked for a new job as a lawyer, but I actively hoped that I would figure out another career that fulfilled me in a way that being a lawyer never had. (I believe that if I’d sought to become a criminal lawyer, the one type of law that really fascinated me, I might have felt differently.) I initially had no idea what that new career might be. I spent time taking family portraits and some time copywriting. I eventually started volunteering at Annabel’s preschool once a week, then started teaching there four days a week. The other teachers were pretty great, and getting to know and work with the kids was amazing, but the pay was extremely low, and I didn’t really get to make many decisions. I wanted something more, but was hesitant to make a move, since I was (am) still drowning in law school student loan debt, and didn’t want to do the wrong thing again. I started subbing for our school district, and got to try out elementary, middle, and high schools. It was so, so hard. But it was also extremely rewarding. After a year of subbing, I decided that I would like to become certified to teach middle school math full-time. After two more years, I received my teaching license, and the next August — over 9 years after I last worked as a lawyer, at the age of 48 — I started teaching in an 8th grade math classroom at a middle school 10 minutes from my house, and I’m still there with no plans to leave. When I talk about my later-in-life career change to people, I often say that being a teacher has been harder than being a lawyer was, because that’s true. It’s also true that while I can’t always say that I like how a particular schoolday went, I love the students, and I truly love that I’m a teacher. I don’t know if I should ever have been a lawyer, but I am 100% certain that becoming a teacher was the right decision. Bam.
The other day I came across a little online quiz that I’d filled out a few years ago. “What’s the first job you remember wanting to do?” was one of the questions. “Teacher,” was my answer. (I chose to go to law school because I didn’t want to leave school.)
As I was working on my puzzle this morning, I picked up a piece with a small curved bright red spot on it. I had picked it up many times before, comparing it to the picture of the puzzle and to the pieces that I’d already put into place, but time after time, I couldn’t figure out where it went. This morning, though, I picked up the piece and immediately recognized it. I dropped it into its spot, which connected two large parts of completed puzzle to each other. “Bam,” I said to myself quietly, and laughed a little.
And then suddenly I was struck by the fact that the puzzle piece had been there the entire time, and that in fact I had looked at it over and over, but it wasn’t until I recognized it that I could fit it into place, and this felt like a very Wizard of Oz type life lesson. (“You’ve always had the power, my dear. You just had to learn it for yourself.”)
How many pieces are still there right now, sitting in front of me, waiting for me to recognize them? Is it possible to help my kids? — Or my students? — to find the pieces earlier? More easily? How many pieces are lost to me forever, never to be put in place? Have I been particularly bad at recognizing the pieces of my life puzzle, or are some pieces just hard to find no matter who you are? Would someone else have recognized the connections between the pieces earlier? Could I have done better if I’d changed something? Listened to my inner self earlier? Trusted myself more? Spent more time thinking and wondering and less time doing the next thing?
THE PIECES WERE THERE ALL ALONG. I just had to recognize them for myself.