At some point I made a conscious decision to start puzzling as a way to stay focused and keep my anxiety occupied. Which is funny, because on more than one occasion I've ended up one piece short of a thousand.
You never know until you get there, of course. Except sometimes I do. Sometimes I've figured it out before placing that 999th piece, and for a completist there's no worse feeling than an unfinished puzzle. So now I carry a strange form of experiential anxiety: the moment I spot a space I can't logically fill, I start bracing for disappointment.
Still, I persevere to the end. Because you never know until you know, and somewhere in that uncertainty is probably the lesson.
But see that missing piece in the foreground? I'm almost certain it will never be found.
Maybe that's part of the lesson too.
