Puzzled

Nearly two years ago, when my mom died, my world shattered, but it didn't fall apart. I was just walking around with all of these cracks and fissures running through me, not quite sure how to fuse the pieces back together. So I just kept moving. Going through the motions, trying to get on with my life. I thought I had done a pretty good job of it, until a year later, when I received a blow that sent all of the pieces flying. It was like I had spent so much time keeping this giant puzzle together that was mostly intact. There were a few pieces sitting at my feet. But I knew where they were, and when I was strong enough, I would be able to put them back in place. Now there was a pile of pieces and I didn't know where to start, so I didn't really try. All I could do was keep moving, keep going through the motions. Slowly those pieces found their way back into place, seemingly on their own. Occasionally, I'd reach down and find one.

That's been the last six months of my life, putting myself back together. I'm finally getting to the bottom of the pile. Down to the pieces that have been missing since my mom passed away, or the ones that I haven't had the strength or courage to put back in place. There were two in particular that I was missing most. One was music. A certain type of music which I love reminded me too much of someone that I was trying hard not to think about. I distracted myself by listening to things that weren't always at the top of my favorites list. I mean, I spent two weeks straight listening to the Tangled soundtrack. Not exactly what those closest to me would expect to hear when they got in my car. It took months to listen to my favorite song. But now, I'm finally enjoying the heavy beats and driving base lines of my crazy rock music again.

The second piece that I missed even more than music, was reading. In the two years since my mother's death I have only ready four books. Four books a week was not uncommon before then. I've been known to read six to seven hundred pages a day still get a full night's sleep and work a full shift at work. Sure I may not have eaten, but I never seemed to notice. I never really thought about why reading and my mom were so closely linked in my head. But upon further pondering, I realized that she was the one who encouraged my love of written words. She discovered her love of reading in her thirties, and because of that, I discovered mine in my early childhood. Her and I would spend hours discussing books, and passing them back and forth. Two weekends ago, I felt it was about time to pick one up and try again. Since then I have read more than ten books. More like devoured them. I forgot how much I love escaping this world into another, dropping into someone else's imagination.

There were two series of books that awakened something else inside of me that had been sleeping, another piece that is still being put back in place. The desire to start writing again. Not to write like I do here, but to create something. A world that only I can build and know all the secrets of. Someplace beautiful, and exciting, and captivating. Somewhere that maybe someone else can escape into one day. I can only hope that I can be half as masterful a storyteller as the ones whose worlds I just visited, but I'm going to try.