I hate this puzzle now.

Because it's not mine.

  I kept saying it over again in my head: I hate this puzzle now. Because it's not mine.

It's not mine.

  I don't know what it is about being so close to finishing something that moves us to destroy it, but up until about an hour ago, I was about sixty pieces shy of finishing a 750-piece puzzle.

     

  About an hour ago, that changed. All 750 pieces wound up broken on the floor --and I think I did, too. You know how sometimes you can cry so hard that you stop breathing? Every camel has a straw that breaks its back...

  I picked up all the pieces though, and it's amazing, isn't it? How the more disastrous what we've done, the faster we can convince ourselves that we're okay with it? It's done now, was my new repetitious thought. Nothing I can do now. And I picked up what I hope is every last piece, and put them in two plastic containers that I might otherwise use to store leftover pasta in the refrigerator. I wrapped the picture of the puzzle from the top of the box --which I had been using as a guide --I wrapped it up in tin foil and I put it all away. Hid it all away. I can't look at it. I don't even want to see it. Don't even want to think of it. If I could have dug a hole in the dirt with my bare hands and put it in there, I would have. Lord, I would have.