Puzzle Pieces

I just participated in a week long solo performance workshop. I had a chance to write and perform my own 3 minute monologue. The piece was inspired by the truth inside of me.

"When my mom left my dad she bought me a jigsaw puzzle. This was no ordinary puzzle for a 6 year old. No 50 piece Disney characters or barn yard animals. It was a 750 piece Wyland jigsaw puzzle entitled “Maui Dawn.” I didn’t understand why, but I started to do it. I think my mom wanted me to think about something other than the fact that things had changed. But being 6, I just remember the dolphins, the fish, the colors, and the sunset sky. I remember how scattered the pieces were and how the number 750 seemed like forever. It took me 9 months to finish it but I finished it. I got better over time. And then puzzles started to become my stress relief. They started to become my escape. Anytime something happened to me or if something was bothering me, I’d take it out on the puzzle. When Wendy Williams pantsed me in the middle of the playground, I came home and did a puzzle. When we moved, I did a puzzle. When I started a new school, I did a puzzle. When I didn’t get a part in the community theater production of Annie, I did a puzzle. When the divorce finalized, I did a puzzle. 750 pieces became 1000 pieces, 2000 pieces, 3D, circles, wood, photo mosaics and then Wyland became Kinkade, cityscapes, famous paintings, scenery, people, on and on… and then suddenly I’m in college. I had boxes of puzzles I wanted to do but never got around to do them. Until one day when I thought life couldn’t get any worse—I opened a box. I scattered 750 pieces of Times Square bustling with nightlife all over the floor. A landscape of neon lights, billboards, Broadway Shows, and people hailing taxis. I spread the pieces out and started to put it together. I finished it in 2 hours and it was in that moment I realized that the day my mom left my dad she handed me the greatest gift I could’ve ever asked for.

I WAS THAT PUZZLE.

All the pieces were there. I just had to sit down and figure them out. No matter the situation, no matter how scattered life may be, no matter how shattered life may seem—it’s how you pick up the pieces and put the puzzle back together… that’s what matters. "