Puzzles & Pandemic Paralysis

As you know, I have a thing for jigsaw puzzles. I love them to the point that I am almost addicted. I don't know why always need a puzzle in progress on my coffee table. I find it troubling. This weekend, I started a puzzle on Wednesday afternoon when I wasn't feeling well. I finished it Friday. I crushed it. It was nuts that I could do a puzzle that hard in that short of time. I am spending way too much time doing puzzles to be that good at them. 

One of my new puzzles from Kickstarter came with a sticker:

This is the last thing I need--an equivalent to a gold star for doing puzzles.

Why I am so troubled by my fantastic puzzling abilities? I wonder what else could I be doing with my precious life/time besides re-arranging little pieces of cardboard or wood to make a picture? I could be reading or exercising or making something cool. I could be practicing piano. Running errands. 

I ask myself what else I would want to do instead of puzzles, not just what could I do. 

• I want to walk around Green Lake with friends.
• I want to bike to Ballard for lunch and then shop. 
• I want to visit my dad in Ohio. 
• I had wanted to spend the week in Montana hanging out with the Boy.
• I want to travel, far or near. I don't care.
• I would want to take a week off to help the Boy look at colleges. 
• I want to go to the gym and get some exercise. 
• I want to go dancing, then sleep in. 
• I want to go to brunch. 
• I want to have a party.
• I want to go to a party.

All of this is part of the pandemic, and I am so tired of it. The easiest thing to do is to slide into a jigsaw puzzle to pass the time when I am not working, cooking, balancing the checkbook or doing laundry.

Jack and I were talking this weekend about the uncertainty of the future. He is thinking about his future a lot and is anxious because he doesn't know what it holds. I, on the other hand, can't even imagine my future.

Why?

Is that normal? With the Boy in treatment, I have been learning about mindfulness and how to live in the moment. Does that mean I don't look to my future?

I wonder if I am having pandemic paralysis, where I am having a hard time imagining my true and beautiful future because I am stuck alone. Maybe I am having a hard time seeing my future because I don't know what the rest of the world will look like in the spring.

Instead, I can think about myself and my own inner growth, but this is challenging to do day in and day out. I need a break, and puzzles give me that time to rest. Maybe puzzles are giving me a chance to hibernate.

Nevertheless, I need something to look forward to. I am going to buy myself a poster of all of the National Parks. My goal to visit all of them in the next five years, pandemic pending.