2,500 Pieces of Persistence
‘It will be a fun way to spend an afternoon as a family,’ he said. He was referring to a 2,500-piece Coca Cola themed wintry scene and if I had given it any thought, I would have realized that a 2,500-piece puzzle cannot be completed in an afternoon. It has been years since Ken walked up to me in Zebs with that puzzle in hand. The memory and his gross underestimate of the time it would take to finish came back to me when I bought puzzles for something to do over February vacation.
I hate clutter. To me, a table with an unfinished puzzle on it is not a project representing family time, it's just clutter. After one afternoon working on that behemoth, barely the outline had taken shape. It was the beginning of an ongoing battle during which the puzzle table moved from room to room. It can be spotted in different rooms in various corners in our family photos and videos year after year, its slow progress documented in the background of birthday and Christmas celebrations. I’m pretty sure none of our friends and family believed we would ever finish it. I quickly came to hate it and threatened more than a few times to take it apart and put it back in the box. Despite the threats, we persisted and nearly 2.5 years later, we finished it. The specifics of placing the last piece are a little fuzzy now, but one thing will remain clear in my mind forever. I gave up on it almost immediately. The enormity of the task and the clutter it represented were too much for me. Ken refused to let me give up no matter how many times we had to move that table. Standing over the table admiring the nostalgic winter scene, I finally saw what he knew was there all along.
Progress takes time. It's not always neat and usually frustrating but that doesn't mean we should lose sight of the finish. I wanted to remember that feeling of accomplishment I got when I first looked at the completed puzzle so I bought a jar of Modge Podge and I glued it and then I had it framed. Now it hangs on the wall as a reminder to keep moving forward even if it is just one piece at a time.