The puzzle

More than anything else, life is really just a big puzzle. When we're born we don't really take out the pieces quite yet, at least we don't. By the time we reach adolescence some pieces in the puzzle are laid out, but whether or not they are right is uncertain. Life feels like one massive puzzle, unique to each person, and yet teenagers like myself are expected to connect most if not all of the pieces by the time we turn 18. This stress and this pressure makes solving the puzzle so unbearably fun that we just wish it would solve itself already. Every teenager just wants to solve the fucking puzzle and be done with it, and that is so unbearably sad to me. Solving the puzzle is supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be something that you do with your family and friends, one piece at a time at whatever pace you feel necessary. But with this limited window of time I keep putting the wrong pieces together, and instead of unravelling these pieces I just keep piling them on and on, making a picture that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. But the worst part isn't that I don't know what I'm doing, or how fast I have to solve the puzzle. The worst part is that the person I depended on most, the person that helped me put together so many pieces isn't here anymore. Whenever I was scared or stressed about which pieces should fit together, she was always there to make me feel ok. And knowing that I don't have her anymore, knowing that she's really gone, it freaks me the fuck out. Now when I get stressed about the puzzle, I don't have her to lean on. I don't have her to talk to and to get my stress out. I miss my partner so bad. So ridiculously, painfully bad. I know I neglected her. I know that it is my fault that she isn't here by my side. But that doesn't stop me from missing her. She helped me put so many pieces together that I didn't realize how big a hole she would leave when she left. It feels like when she left she took half the puzzle pieces with her, and what's the point of solving a puzzle if I don't have all the pieces.