“Like a goddamm puzzle piece that’s out of place”. I sent a long paragraph to my friends about how I was feeling, or not feeling rather and this, this phrase stuck out like a sore thumb to me. I’m not sure why, but it did. Burned a hole in my chest because the way I look at it. Life is one big puzzle we all have to sort of fit together different as we are to create this beautiful mosaic of life. The vibrant vivid Scarlets and the monotone greys. That’s how we fit but me? I feel like the factory chewed me up and spit me out.
The feeling of not belonging is like a cancer, particularly nasty and aggressive cancer. And it eats you whole. I’ve heard people speak on the pain of loneliness but not belonging surpasses that surprisingly enough. I watched someone great and I got so caught up in seeing things that had become so familiar.
One more!
I wanted one more chance to live again. But then I realized I don’t. If I got one more kiss, one more introduction, one morechance to fall in love I’d do it wrong. I’d be so cautious I’d forget to feel it. I’d forget to appreciate how love can be amazing and transcendent. I’d forget how much I love love. Jenny said sometimes things don’t break they shatter. I shattered in the depth of that loniless. In that space where I didn’t fit in. Not with the old life I left behind nor with the new one I was working to create. A misplaced puzzle piece
And for so long I didn’t want to believe that, I thought we’re connected, all of us in the grand scheme of things. Where it’s impossible to not fit. So it has to be forever. It is. Just not the way I thought. But the world is full of us, misplaced puzzle pieces that don’t belong. And in all honest we’re all shattered but the saddest reality is our shattered pieces are too dangerous to put back. All we’ll do is cut each other. So leave them to reflect the sin and glitter and glimmer and the memory of what was before we saw the picture completed. Of the faux sense of belonging we all felt when we saw others similar but different to us.
To write is a gift, one that can not be explained. To express is a blessing. And if I could I’d write out my story where I find another lost puzzle piece. Then we’d stand side by side and realize we fit. We weren’t lost after all we were simply traveling. But we don’t get to do that because I don’t get to write the script. So I continue being misplaced. Being alive but not living, here but not aware. Not fitting in with the friends I love because our lives are so different now.
The girl they met is gone. Life gnawed and nibbled at the edges of her until she couldn’t fit into the puzzle anymore. She couldn’t. And as I look back on it now I have to question whether she was ever a fit. She hung out with the smart kids but wasn’t as smart as them, hung out with rich kids but wasn’t as rich. Hung out with alcoholics and druggie but never over indulged. So now I question if she ever really fit. Or if they were all just being kind. Taking pity on the castaway. I know know where she belonged though, at least where she felt she belonged but even that’s a distant memory now, so she can’t even claim to remember what that felt like. What she does remember is pain and confusion and desperation. To fit. To belong. But I guess it’s like that sometimes.
“I don’t know how to love people, people change and people hurt you. But words, words endure forever. Love is love love even when we’re not together. So you see? I fall inlove with words and feelings and memories just never with people. And perhaps that’s the reason I can never seem to fit in anywhere except in desolate places. And isn’t that a sad reality?”