Puzzle Pieces

There is a moment in Augusten Burroughs' Running with Scissors which has stayed with me ever since I read it.  Burroughs talks about returning back to his "normal" life after a stint in rehab.  A therapist had warned him that after rehab, he may find that the people in his life didn't fit anymore.  The therapist described people as puzzle pieces who fit into their world in a particular way.  When people go to rehab or have significant experiences, they come back to their life in a different shape.  People around them either reshape themselves to fit again into the puzzle of this person's life --- or they don't, and eventually find that no amount of pushing will make them part of the whole again.

I am a reshaped puzzle piece.  I know this feeling from many things.  For the past few days, it has been an insistent pressure, right in the center of my chest where I can't ignore it.  My shape changed, and now I'm chafing up against the people and things in my life trying to find the new place where they fit -- if they fit at all.

In quiet moments (in my car, sitting here at night after I've done all the chores I can stand and it's still too early for bed) I feel myself adjusting to my new shape.  I feel like my sternum is folding into a prow-like shape, ready to cut through whatever water is coming my way.  And the water comes.  Some days it's tears I' can't control, some days it's choking on air like it was water in my lungs, and some days it's needing to sit because someone replaced the bones of my legs with fluid.  Both my internal and external environments are changing.

Until I understand this new shape, I am wary of people who used to fit so well with me.  Alone I am reaching further into doubts and fears I never faced.  At some point, this will all have to be integrated into my new shape.  For now, though, raw and watery as I am, I am not yet ready to lean into everyone to see if I can make their shapes fit into mine.  Some of them I can see will not fit -- everyone else will have to wait.