Putting the Pieces Together: A Most Unusual Puzzle

Several weeks ago, right after I realized I had ADHD, I had bought myself a puzzle. It was a 1000-piece puzzle of a couple hummingbirds in flight, surrounded by flowers and other plant life. I worked on it practically nonstop for several days, putting it together whenever I had a moment, and I found many. Once I find something I’m really into, it’s hard to hit the pause button. It did not take long before I was staring at the finished product, gratified with myself for completing it all on my own. Though I suspected it, I had it confirmed last week I have high functioning autism as well. That hummingbird puzzle was a visible reminder (if not a manifestation) of something going on in my life. Not only was it bringing together pieces of my past strongly suggesting I am doubly neurodivergent, but it also demonstrated another truth: on a spiritual level, so much of my life really is coming together, solving a lifelong mystery I never thought would see a solution.

The past couple of weeks for me have been life-altering. I feel I have been catapulted into another dimension, one I never saw before. The dimension in which I find myself is one where I am able to look back at my previous life experiences. I could reflect and say, “okay, that makes sense,” or “that explains why…”, and you fill in the blanks. It’s in this space I have become an observer of my own life, gazing into it as though it were a glass house or I had been existing within a bubble. It was an odd yet clarifying moment. I can remember something that happened forty-six years ago, and confidently say to myself that that piece of my life puzzle was truly integral to the person I am right now. If anyone were to say the woman I am today has nothing to do with what happened that long ago, I know dismissing that one event would have made the puzzle that is me incomplete and quite literally, longing for that missing piece. I am who I am right now because I was willing to step outside of myself with an eagerness to gain clarity. I sensed I could direct my life in a direction that felt safe to me.

And everyone has a right to feel safe, no matter who they are.

This week’s Writer’s Wednesday piece is “double drabble” called A Woman’s Gaze. It focuses on a reality in which a woman discovers a way in which she can see her world from a different perspective, though from her own mind as well.

Lots going on in my life right now! Been writing extra this week, to help get all my ideas out of my head. I hope this very short story is plenty to chew on. 🙂

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