If life is one big jigsaw puzzle, then all the pieces should — eventually — fit together. This is definitely heartening on days when it feels like I’m navigating that giant expanse of blended blue ocean pieces, searching for whisps of sea foam to distinguish one from another, or the rainforest section where everything is a variation of celadon to fern to emerald.
Speaking of rain forests, my husband brought home a tree last week. A house tree. Working in the apartment industry, there are often remodels of office space, model apartments and common areas. And often, there are knick knacks that are either thrown out, or free (or close to free) for the taking. This has been a benefit to us in the past. A little worn coach for a token $50 just because someone decided a new look in the model would show better online? Sure! For $50, our kids can definitely destroy that (one day we’ll have nice things…)! Random ugly framed art? Free frames! Totally worth sitting in our basement until the right artwork comes around. I’m on board. What about a house tree? Where would we put it?, I ask. It’s not that we live in a shoebox, but we definitely seem to have exceeded our stuff allotment. It’s a tree!, my husband says. We can’t just let them throw out a tree. And in principle, I agree. A tree should be respected and tended. Except that now there is an 8-foot tree in my living room. 
We’ll give it a week, my husband says. Maybe two. Just to see.
It seems petty to mention that the real, live, growing tree is covering up my black vinyl sticker tree. 
My husband says that’s actually the best part, not because he hates vinyl sticker trees (I don’t think), but because you can see the blue birds right through the real tree’s branches! So it’s a tree within a tree! You like trees, he points out. Our whole living room was full of pictures of trees, anyway. And this is true. In two weeks, I probably won’t even remember a time when there wasn’t an 8-foot tree in my living room.
In any case, I had far greater issues. This weekend while I was leaving the grocery store, I suddenly realized that I was ridiculously dehydrated. Luckily, the grocery store is one of the best places to realize that, and I actually had a 12-pack of sparkling water right in my very own cart. Being a woman of action, I immediately solved the hydration issue, but at unanticipated peril to my hand. A cardboard cut. The worst of the small but horrible cut variety. 
And right on my pinky! Do you know how often you use your pinky? Especially if you work in an office, with a keyboard? About eleventy-million times a day. Thank goodness my daughter had had an injury just horrible enough herself, earlier in the day, to need about 25 seconds of ice on the way to her soccer game. That ice, long since melted, but now a snack baggie of clean water in a grocery store parking lot, served as the first aid I needed to keep my limb and continue home. But seriously, eleventy-million times a day.
In tonight’s game of child care and activity hot potato, we had family dinner at the rec center between my oldest’s dance classes, as one does on a Tuesday. If I left work by 5:30, I could definitely make it on time. At 5:37, I was still feeling pretty optimistic. Four kids burrito bowls from Qdoba, please. 
All with chicken, rice, pico and black beans, but all four with a different combination of queso, guacamole, cheese, and sour cream. And I realized, just for a moment, before I went back to being someone’s harried co-worker and mother and living life off a post-it note (dammit, another day where I didn’t renew those unread library books), that my puzzle pieces aren’t just indistinguishable shades of blue and green, even though sometimes they feel exactly like a turbulent ocean. My puzzle pieces are growing up right before my eyes, with growing preferences and senses of humor and talents and personalities and clear opinions on sour cream. How lucky am I to be sorting through these pieces and getting to know them well enough to fit them together.
Although, I admit, 20 minutes later, my zen had evaporated just enough that I was still kinda annoyed to realize that these were definitely my husband’s socks:
But whether it’s the beginnings of a forest in my living room (we’ll appreciate the extra oxygen come February), or home-spun philosophy found in the plating of a burrito bowl, I’m going to try to remember it’s usually best to accept the pieces as they come, even though some fit more easily than others. And to appreciate especially when there are literally random pieces. 
This is what my youngest left behind when she went to bed. Sight word homework, a Darth Vader head, an amethyst with a buffalo on it, and some Playdoh. I feel like that sums things up pretty well. My puzzle is a long way from complete, but really, I wouldn’t want to finish it anytime soon, anyway.