I'd like to return this puzzle : A free write about who we are in relationships.

We are told that we are born incomplete beings. We are told by songs, movies, TV, books, and the lens into other people’s fake lives that is social media that we as a single entity are incomplete. We are all puzzles. A puzzle missing a pivotal piece, usually right in the center of the image for dramatic effect. But let me ask you this, when have you gone to the store and bought a puzzle that you knew was missing a piece? Why would you buy it? And if you didn’t know and then opened the box, wouldn’t you return it? The analogy doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t make sense because the image of that puzzle wasn’t made incomplete and neither are we. But being withered down to nothing by everything around us is telling us that we are. We are made to feel like we are missing an important part to ourselves, like our image is incomplete. Some of us are able to lift the veil and see that we have all of our pieces, even if they aren’t completely put together yet, they are still all there. So it makes sense that when two new people that both have been convinced they are missing a part of themselves meet, they are able to convince themselves that they feel whole again. Even though they may have already been to begin with. And that’s why there is often a struggle between ones who wear the veil and those who have lifted it. Either one helps the other lift the veil therefore withering away a part of themselves or one never develops an understanding for the other and the friction is just too much.

It’s all disguised as love, true love. That thing that we’re told everyone needs, that we’re supposedly nothing without. Dismissing your emotions and feelings for the emotions and feelings of another is supposed to be true love. Suppressing yourself so they can thrive and forgetting about what you need. No one discusses mutual growth instead of true love because it’s not romantic. It’s not that interesting in a cinematic setting. Learning to grow with and roll with the punches of someone you love is deeper than the mass produced concept of true love. Recognizing that the people you meet are already complete puzzles has a much more promising effect in the long run than trying to help someone find a piece that isn’t missing. People end up trying to fill these voids of this in unhealthy ways, In destructive ways. Drinking, drugs, possessive and/or obsessive behavior, dousing your fears and insecurities all over this other person like a broken fire hose most likely breaking their neck from the pressure. Emotionally speaking, hopefully. Or they make giant rash decisions like getting a dog without doing the research, getting married without knowing someone or making children without a plan. These things will love me unconditionally to fill the void of the love I don’t have for myself we think, but will they? The logical answer is maybe. And the romanticized answer is… well, also maybe. So, Are you willing to risk everything for a definite maybe?

From a personal stand point, there is a certain programming that sets in after I feel love for someone. I go in recognizing the completion of my own vibrant cardboard image, appreciating it to the full extent of its glory. But then at some point a switch goes off in my brain and I start giving away my pieces. “You feel incomplete, you don’t have enough pieces so here take mine! The fits a little awkward but we can make it work. You know what? I have some space now so what if I take some of yours?” It makes so much sense on paper, but the pieces don’t fit together correctly because they aren’t yours. You are now trying to file the edges and rip the cardboard to reshape them but it never goes back together the way it’s supposed and now your images doesn’t make sense. Your skies are all mixed in with your landscapes and it just doesn’t work anymore! Who would put a piece of a sky in the middle of a grassy field? The colors don’t match and it’s all wrong! But you took on these parts for the sake of commercially accepted true love in hopes to make a combined image that makes sense to (hopefully) someone. Maybe, if you mix the parts together maybe it would make something new and workable. Something that makes sense to someone even if it isn’t you. So, you trade more pieces. And with each love lost, each love come and gone you trade more of your pieces until you feel like you don’t have a working image anymore, until you don’t feel complete without the pieces from another person’s puzzle because you’ve forgotten what your original image looks like.

What do you do now? You’ve been dating and falling in and out of love for years! Why didn’t you put glue on your blank back to preserve yourself? Hindsight is 20/20, I guess. It’s only when you are fully on your own in your own mess that you can fully assess the damage from all this “true love” that you’ve given away. Your once pristine image of a beautiful vibrant landscape has been assembled, disassembled, ripped, torn, filed, had liquids spilled on you so your dye runs and fades. Your parts and pieces are all over the place. You’re now a very abstracted version of your original image.

The best thing to do is to honor your transition and reclaim your abstracted visual. Respect and appreciate that you made it this far and although they may be different, you are leaving with as many pieces as you came in with. Many people aren’t so lucky. So many people give up parts of themselves due to pain and abuse that they are never able to get those pieces back and they have to readjust to a different abstracted image than others. An image that we’ve been convinced is lesser. It’s not lesser, it’s just different. And much like what got us into this mess, which is the idea that we were convinced at an early age that we are incomplete or are not enough. Us, with our newly defeated sense of self are told that that isn’t OK. Accept your new image, appreciate your new abstract version of yourself. Own up to the fight you went through and that there is a reason you’re ripped and torn with running shades of blue and green. There is so much beauty in the abstraction.

Although society says true love is giving up parts of yourself, a devastating sacrifice; That you have to prove yourself aggressively instead of growing together harmoniously. The grand gesture, if you will. “They” say that anything worth having is worth fighting for. And I’ve fought the good fight. We all have. But at what point is the fight not worth it anymore? At what point are you becoming a martyr for no reason or even for vain ones. At what point is this slight chance at happiness worth the struggle? When does the search for happiness become the acceptance of misery? It all goes back to that originally upsetting but societally acceptable void we were convinced we have to fill. Our missing piece. We give away our pieces in hope that the exchange will result in happiness. What people don’t know is that if you are lucky enough to be able to lift the veil early than it can result in that same happiness you would eventually need to seek in others, but few get that luxury. The next best option is to assess what you have and love it. Assess and accept your damage. It’s beautiful. From here on out, remember that you are complete even if you’re a little rough around the edges now. You need to appreciate what gives you texture. As cliché’ as it is, happiness starts from within yourself.

You will never find what you need to feel complete in someone else, because you already have it. You are an abstracted reassembled puzzle. A beautifully fucked up mess who’s story should be valued, because more of us are more abstracted than we like to let on. We are embarrassed about something that we should be owning. Being an intact entity from the beginning and staying that way is a rarity. Own up to who you are now. Study your nuances. Learn to appreciate the plots and twists that created your story that lead to your distorted image. Odds are that one day, on your journey you will meet other weary travelers with which you can trade stories with and show each other where you re-taped your pieces back together; and that work will be valued for what is it. Beautiful.