Puzzle Pieces

My friend Lori came up with the answer last night over pizza.

"You see, people in a society fit themselves together like puzzle pieces," Lori explained. "And, if through the process of personal growth and discovery, your puzzle piece changes shape, well, they just don't know what to do with you anymore."

Oh. It's that simple. And here I was making a big fuss over it all.

I just don't fit in.

Well, thank goodness for that!

I can only apologize to all of those I had fooled all this time. I looked like a puzzle piece, I acted like a puzzle piece, I did all the things that puzzle pieces are supposed to do. I tried to pretend, especially to myself, that being a puzzle piece was what it was all about and that I really wanted to be a puzzle piece.

So it really is all my fault that the rest of the puzzle pieces don't know what to make of me now that I've decided to be Playdough.

Playdough is messy. It has no form, no specific plan, no instructions on exactly what you are supposed to do with it. It comes in bright separate containers, the colors all nice and clearly defined. But the more you play with it, and the more creative you become, the more the colors stick together and the uglier and messier it gets.

Once you start with the Playdough, it will never go back neatly into its properly labelled containers.

My apologies for getting sticky all over your carefully constructed puzzle.

It's a hell of a mess to clean up.