I think about a jigsaw puzzle that I worked on a little bit at a time for weeks, only to find that I was out of pieces in the box, but there was still a hole in the puzzle. I couldn’t believe it. I looked all around, even behind the sofa cushions. I was so frustrated.
I thought of calling the company who made the puzzle, but how would I describe the missing piece? “It’s a green one, with a darker green stripe along one side, and it’s cut with a little curvy part along the top.” Right.
We all have little parts missing, don’t we? I know I do. I’m missing one of my patience pieces, the one that would let me wait in really long lines without complaining. I’m also missing the “I love coffee” piece, and the “just let them do it the dumb way” piece. It seems to me we’re defined as much by the pieces we don’t have as the ones we do. This is literally true of our DNA. The gene pairs we don’t have make as much difference as the ones that are easily identified.
When we try to be different, are we attempting to fill in a gap, or get rid of something we don’t want? I think we all have a desire to change some part of ourselves — we want to be healthier, thinner, wealthier, more interesting, kinder, or improve at something. More, better, faster.
Sometimes we just have a nagging feeling that something is missing. The lyrics of an old song say, “Is that all there is?” We have a feeling deep down — we know — that there is more, if we could just find it. In many of the people that I have known, the piece that is missing is a connection.
We are social beings. We yearn for relationships with others, and when they aren’t there, we feel it deeply. This is part of the grief that we feel when a loved one dies. It can feel like a part of us has died as well. Dr. John Cacioppo wrote a great deal about how loneliness can affect us. (See my post on Loneliness and Solitude.)
Poets talk about a lacuna, which means “a blank space or missing piece.” One can seemingly have everything they could possibly desire and still feel this. It can be a feeling of emptiness, or simply a want to feel complete and whole.
One novelist puts it this way: “‘Want,’ she told her, in a measured tone, ‘is an interesting word. It means lack. Sometimes if we fill that lack with something else the original want disappears entirely. Maybe you have a lack problem rather than a want problem. Maybe there is a life that you really want to live.’” (Matt Haig, The Midnight Library)
There are days when I feel like I’m on a pretty good path, doing things that are worthwhile and moving me forward. And there are other days when I’m searching. On those days, I’m desperately seeking the life that I really want to live. Those days can be rough.
