Puzzle

I remember when I was a child, there was this puzzle that I had been working on for a long time, well maybe not that long, but considering the ADHD brain it was for me most certainly a VERY long time. All would have been fine, if not for the fact that in the end, I discovered there were 2 pieces missing. Do you know how frustrating that is, especially for a kid, that you can't finish it? It felt like I had completely waisted all my time.

It's funny how the same situation is different when you're about 20, 30 years older. This time the one who is completely blowing it all out of proportion is not you, but your own child. Of course you understand its frustration, and the loudly expressed tantrum that follows (most likely you actually see yourself as a child again). After an impressive escape from being hit by the carton box of this puzzle you perform a vague attempt to calm down your very hacked off child. Not that you think it helps, but hey, you're a mother (or father) so that's what you do. You show some understanding and you tell him/her it's not the end of the world.

Probably it's better, that it doesn't help right away. You've gotta learn to realise yourself that there are worse things in life than an incomplete puzzle. The only thing a parent can hope for is that these attempts of comforting and explaining, will in the end help a child to be able to understand, out of its own feelings and emotions, what is really important, or not.

If only growing up and learning to deal with likewise matters of life, was 'as simple' as a kid's puzzle with a few missing pieces. It gets a lot more complicated. And as every person is different from the other, there are different ways and different forms of abilities in people in relation to this "growing up business".

You may think by now that I totally lost it, starting with a simple example of an incomplete puzzle and ending up talking like Freud. But what I actually mean, is that even complicated situations in adult life, can be approached like a puzzle with a few missing pieces. Obviously, I know there's a significant difference between for example a Teletubbies-puzzle and an ending relationship, but maybe, just maybe we should actually try now and again to go back to childhood and see the world a bit less complicated. Maybe we should give ourselves the chance again to have a more innocent look at life.

'Cause maybe, when confronted with incomplete puzzles... we might have a tantrum, throw a little fit, or whatever... but then, like being comforted by our mother,
we are able to calm down, understand, accept. And deal with it. The small advantage of adulthood is that we've hopefully developed enough of our Theory of Mind, so this dealing is done to our best intentions, for the ones around us, as for ourselves.

(I probably go too far with suggesting we could let this immaturely be followed by insisting we need an ice cream to feel better , right?)

J