Jigsaw

I am the piece of the jigsaw puzzle that doesn't seem to fit.  The piece that appears like it came from another box and no matter how you turn it, it never seems to be the one that belongs there.  The colors seem right but...

We are a puzzle to many.  How we can turn our world upside down confounds people.  Honestly it confounds us.  Why would we give up lives, jobs, family?  It doesn't make sense.  How an airplane stays in the air doesn't make sense to me either, even though I passed that test in college.  (Is there a giant sucky thing that holds it up?  I remember something about laminar airflow and different pressures and...all I really care is the damn thing doesn't fall with me in it).  Sometimes we just take things for what they are worth. I think a large number of transpeople do that.  There is no explanation (something about laminar airflow and genetic make up).

I promise you the piece fits.  And it fits without force or remodeling. But you have to "see" how it fits.

When you look at that piece and you look at the space it should occupy and you don't see the way it should fit.  Sometimes you twist it or flop it and the fit may be closer...or worse.  But the key is to "see" how it does fit.  It isn't by changing it or forcing it into a wrong space.  It is often by getting it just right and it slides right in.

We aren't here because a puzzle got mixed up.  We aren't here to frustrate you.   We are here because we are part of the big picture...just a small piece that when added to 999 more makes a cute photo of cats playing bingo. 

OK that was silly right?  Everyone knows cats hate bingo preferring instead to play Canasta (Editor's note...I have no idea how to play Canasta).  But the big picture doesn't have to be sunny beaches or grand mountains.  It can be silly and make no sense at the same time.  I am a scientist, we were told there was always an answer.  True, it may not be the RIGHT answer but there is an answer.  Some we may never know.

We ask "why"?  We accept other things but we ask "why" about ourselves.  We don't argue with most of he "givens" in our lives.  There are reasons for those...wind for example is from a giant fan in California.  But we don't question it (except in golf days when you watch your ball suddenly go left).  I am sure there is a reason for transgendered people.  Someday they will find it, which brings up a whole new set of questions.  Ethical questions that will effect us profoundly.  Certain people will want to "correct" whatever the anomaly is so that the puzzle piece fits.  Changing the cats playing bingo into a picture of a horse painting a masterpiece ( there are horses that do watercolor or oils though, they are paint horses).  Others will want to test and delete whatever causes trans.  Simple way to get rid of the fact the piece doesn't appear to fit...but that would leave a hole in the cats playing bingo thing, maybe where B-8 was and some poor cat won't win then.  No, we know the piece fits...somehow.

Sometimes it takes a different perspective.  You move to the right and it all becomes clear.  A little turn and voila' (that's French for I'll be damned).  You can give up and walk away before that.  Seems many people do think walking away from an almost finished puzzle is the answer.  Others will ponder and work until it makes sense.

Then one day, you slide that piece over the space and realize...it is part of the picture.  You are happy and proud.  You are also angry you didn't see it before, it was so simple.   Hopefully the picture is complete then, every piece working with every other piece.  But if you wait too long or leave it unfinished because you didn't want to make an effort, when you come back there may be other pieces missing and your world will never be complete.

Take time to see how the pieces fit.