Pick Up The Pieces

A few preliminary things to say today. Then I'll get on to the long winded ramble I've been craving. Now would be an excellent time to take a nap... just leave this page up and take a little snooze until someone or something jolts you awake and you can pretend you were reading it. I won't tell anyone.

I got my cowgirl boots yesterday! Now I can pretend I'm actually a genuine article, real live boot-scooter!! I just have to master the scooting without falling over part... To be honest, they are a little more "I'm a country girl wanna-be" then "I'm an honest to goodness country girl" boots, but I really am just a wanna-be... and they're sooo cute...

Shout out to my dear friends at Katie-Isms. They were so good as to post a poem of mine. Lots of cool stuff over there. I shamelessly recommend you follow.

Ah... long winded ramble time!

I am a puzzle.

Don't look so surprised. You're a puzzle too, silly.

People are puzzles. (Aliens might be too...) I would go so far as to say that anything or anyone with a personality is a puzzle.

If you have ever put together a puzzle, you know that it is generally helpful to start with the corners and the outside frame. These are the obvious pieces. I am Anna. I am seventeen. I have brown eyes. I am tall. These pieces frame the puzzle and give you a vague idea of what it looks like, but they don't make the picture.

Next, you embellish on those corners a little. These give you more perspective on the picture. These pieces are "getting to know someone". Close, but not too close. Near the surface, but not superficial. This is, perhaps, the foundation of friendship. You would probably need to know a little more about me than the fairly obvious to be my friend. You would need to know what I like, what I don't like, what I do and that sort of thing. I like pink. I don't like snakes. I play the piano (badly, I might add).

Then, you're a row or two deeper in the puzzle. This is the fun stuff. You are starting to see it come together! You're not even half way there, but you still have energy, determination and you're still having fun! This is the treasure trove. Those cool, neat, amazing parts of people you never would have thought they had. The parts you only ever get to see if you dig a little deeper. Their opinion. Their world view. The crazy talents they have. Their dreams and hopes and wishes and their favorite song.

But just a step away are those middle pieces. The ones you really, really hate if you're working on a puzzle of something like an ocean, or a sky or something else where everything is the same color and pretty much looks the same. (Like a zebra.) These are the tedious pieces. The not so pleasant pieces. Here's where the annoying habits, the unattractive qualities, the obnoxious bits of us that make us ever so human are. If you know these things about someone, you are either married, really good friends or siblings. These are the parts a lot of us try to hide. And for good reason- they're not very pretty.

Then you have the center pieces. Those ones leading up to the last piece. The soul of the puzzle. The core. These are the pieces that make me Anna and you whoever you are. The pieces no one else has. Someone else is named Anna. Someone else doesn't like snakes. Someone else is a real jerk before they've had their coffee in the morning. Just like me. But nobody else has my heart, my soul, my core, my being. That's mine. This radiates from the inside out, affecting everything else about me, but this is what make me me.

Most of us don't really know the core anymore. Not even of our own puzzle, much less someone else's. It takes a lot of time and effort to make it there. Time we think we don't have. Effort we don't make anymore. People used to do that, you know. Get to know one another? Put together puzzles? Heck, yes.

Now we hardly know our own.

My point, my plea would be to try it. Invest in other people. Pay attention. Every time you have any interaction with another person, you're giving and receiving pieces. You'll be surprised, I can guarantee you. People are worthwhile.

Pick up the pieces.