Puzzle Pieces & Packing

​Good News! We sold our house! It’s time to down-size, do some major relaxing, enjoying and exploring.  But before all that happens we have to pack and move. As I was wandering, what felt rather aimlessly, around my house yesterday trying to decide what to pack next and what to pack it in when I came to the realization that packing to move is a lot like trying to do a puzzle without a picture.

That’s kind of an anxiety causing thought, at least to me it is. Here’s why:

Let me set the scene. There are all these pieces to the puzzles scattered in different rooms of my house; shoes, tools, toys, clothes, games, books, vases, cups and…you get the picture.

The start of packing reminds me of the start of a 3,000 piece puzzle. You know how you sort out all the edge pieces first?  Then you sort the similar colored pieces into separate piles before you start putting them together? That’s where I am currently. Everything is sorted which is good and I’m starting to gather an idea of what the final picture looks like which is also good, but I still don’t know exactly how everything will fit together.

Fitting things into boxes is the part of the puzzle where you’re looking for the hole on the puzzle piece to fit the tab or vice versa. Sometimes there’s too much space around the tab and sometimes there’s too little space. This is much like packing things in boxes. You get lucky when the contents actually fits snug like two matching puzzle pieces. When the pieces do fit you get a bit excited because that’s progress!

Eventually I will get everything packed and the pieces of the puzzles will all be in place. Then I’ll be able to see the full picture. I imagine my big picture is a new home and saying goodbye to an empty house. With the puzzle complete it means it’s time to go.

You know what happens next. You break apart the puzzle a.k.a. unpack the boxes and put it all away again.

I could go on and on about how much I don’t enjoy packing but who really enjoys packing? Packing for a vacation, maybe, but packing to move? I don’t know a single person who likes that kind of packing.

But, more good news, I kind of like puzzles. So, as long as I keep that in mind as I pack these boxes then I can manage that anxious thought of a picture-less puzzle.

I know the final picture will be grand! After all, life is what you make it.

Keep loving.