I have many friends who enjoy puzzles, especially those with second homes and busy grandchildren! I remember doing puzzles as a child, but not so much as an adult – that is until I started visiting those people with second homes and busy grandchildren. It can become an obsession to get one finished. Just a few more minutes . . .?
What do they do with the puzzles that have been “done”? They box them up (hopefully with all pieces included) and give them to the next person, and so on and so on and so on. Somewhere down that line of “puzzle passing” is yours truly. A couple of months ago I received about a dozen “done” puzzles from one of those friends. Never one to turn down a freebie, I gratefully accepted them.
A week later came the Ziploc baggie . . .
with the pieces she had recovered from the carpet under the puzzle table.
She has no clue which puzzle they belong to, or if in fact they belong to the SAME puzzle. Hmmmm, now that’s “puzzling”!
And you guessed it, I just couldn’t resist making the analogy of the missing puzzles pieces to my “post divorce” life. I know you’ve felt it too. Some days you just can’t see how you fit into the giant puzzle of life. I thought my puzzle was well designed and put together with no missing pieces. I didn’t see that in reality my life puzzle had pieces that were being lost or removed or put in the wrong places.
People who do a lot of puzzles sometimes use this certain kind of pad on their tables to keep the pieces from sliding off or getting lost. It literally holds the pieces together – non-skid! Though I had tried to hold the pieces of my marriage and my life together, my pieces were skidding right off the edge of the table and falling to the carpet below to be picked up at a later date. Once I got those pieces picked up, I wasn’t sure where they belonged or how they would ever fit together again.
As of today I still haven’t figured out which puzzles those pieces in the Ziploc belong to, and I still haven’t figured out where some of those missing puzzles pieces of my life belong – I still need . . . “just a few more minutes!”
suddenlysinglewomen 
It is a very good thing that the journey of life is not as predictable as fitting together the pieces of a puzzle! Many unpredictable things occur that turn out to be positive when we have the gifted opportunity of hindsight. And I believe you should give yourself credit for conducting yourself in a manner that did in fact keep all the pieces together and on the table without skidding off for many years, even though that table was on a rocking rail. The problem was the other person who was not reliable, trustworthy or living with integrity! There is not a skid-free pad made that could have changed how he purposely and deliberately chose to lose many of the puzzle pieces in his life with you. You, on the other hand, have and will continue to find not only lost pieces but discover new ones that fit even better. Love you, as do many others with whom you have chosen to surround yourself. Some pieces are worth losing, permanently!