JIGSAWThe past, present, and future me.

JIGSAWThe past, present, and future me.

MIKE HALL

With Jennifer KleinIllustrations by Jeff Macpherson

Copyright © 2011 by Mike B. Hall

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America.

First Printing, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-578-08871-6

Mike Hall Productions1525 16th Ave Cir NWHickory, NC 28601

www.mikeisspeaking.com

Printed by A&A Printing, Tampa, FL

Cover photo by Ryan AresteguiBack photo by Carol Anne HartmanCover design by Mike HallEdited by Carrie HallPage formatting by Carolyn Sheltraw

I'm dedicating this book to you,

Carrie, my editor and best friend.

You did an incredible job.

JIGSAW PRODUCERS

“S.O.B.” MCCLOUD

CHRIS & LYNN WINKLER

SHELLY

LOWELL

RONALDO

MARCUS, LORI, LUKE, & VIOLET EILAND

ANN & WHEELER SMITH

LOUIE CASCELLA

PRESTON SPRINGER

BOB AND NANCY HALL

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1. Stork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter 2. Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Chapter 3. Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Chapter 4. Voices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Chapter 5. Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Intermission: The King’s Dilemma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Chapter 6. Feelings, Stupid Feelings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Chapter 7. Love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Chapter 8: Toxic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Chapter 9: Guts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

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Chapter 10: Dream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Firefl ies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

Afterword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

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PREFACE

You know that feeling you get when you fi nish some-thing that was diffi cult? Pride mixes with relief mixes with exhaustion mixes with _____________(insert feeling).

*Maybe now is the time you need to know that you will help me write and illustrate this book. There won’t be any right or wrong answers. Just make sure they’re honest. Oh, and have fun, too.

That feeling was happening to me. I was seven and liv-ing in Virginia with my parents and older brother and sister. As usual, there was a jigsaw puzzle being assem-bled in our home.

We would set up a square folding table in the den. A puzzle (always a really hard one) would then be scat-tered across its surface, and we’d begin. Depending on the diffi culty of the puzzle, and our own motivation, the

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pieces would start coming together to form a picture.

One of them, the banana puzzle, was insane. 90% of the 5,000 pieces were solid yellow. A “Chiquita” sticker made up the other 10%. This was a serious project but my family was not one to back away from a challenge. The harder it was, the harder we tried. Call it stubborn-ness or call it resolve, we were not about to let a jigsaw puzzle get the best of us. Months after we started, the moment came when the last piece was stuck into place. We probably went to Pizza Hut or something that night to celebrate.

What does this have to do with your life? I’m glad you wondered that…because it’s more than you might think. Welcome to Jigsaw, the book that we’ll write and illustrate together. By the time we’re done, expect to have much better clarity about who you were, who you are, and who you’ll be.

Sitting in a booth at Atlanta Bread Hickory, North Carolina 5/11/11 …eating a bagel.

1

CHAPTER 1. STORK

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A lot happened before you showed up, actual-ly. Kings and queens reigned and died, dinosaurs chased each other around the jungle, the Grand Canyon was carved out of solid rock, dynasties came and went, man went to the moon, people actually wore____________________ (something old school), and MTV showed music videos…like all the time.

Your mom and dad had a life pre-you. They grew up somewhere, had hard times and good times, went to middle school, went to high school and maybe even got into some trouble! Maybe they already had other children before you came along. They might have been in jail, climbed a mountain, sailed the ocean, or _____________________ (something cool you wish your parents had done). Their experi-ence is part of who you are. Life might have been painful for them, or life might have been incredibly awesome for them. Either way, it aff ects them, and that aff ects you.

A lot will happen after you’re gone, too. Your life is pret-ty much a blip on the radar screen compared to all of our past and future history as the human race.

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Make a dot on this timeline that represents your lifespan…

Don’t get the wrong idea here. The point is not that you don’t matter. That’s the furthest thing from the truth. What you should realize is that so much that happened before you got here played a part in you becoming who you are.

So here’s my history: with a father in the Navy, our family moved 18 times by the time I graduated high school. Before I was on the scene they made stops in California, Tennessee, and even Greece. Moving does something to a person. Packing up your life’s contents and shoving it in a moving van over and over and over can wear you down. Once you get used to a place, fi nd out where the mall is, where the best places to eat are,

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where people go to hang out, life gets easier. Things kind of get in a routine, but if you move a lot, you have to come up with a new routine over and over again. Imagine planting a sapling in your back yard and then digging it up every couple of months and moving it to the other side of the house. It would never get a chance to develop strong roots. It’s hard moving around a lot.

My dad’s ancestors have been in America for a long time. Hey- I even have a relative who signed the Decla-ration of Independence- Lyman Hall! High fi ve!

Mom’s side of the family came to the US from Sweden a few generations ago. Most of them became farmers out in the Midwest.

My DNA is 1/2 British, 1/4 Irish and 1/4 Swedish. Yes…you’ll see the point in a minute.

Two siblings were born before me and none came af-ter me, making me the “baby.” Awww…baby Mikey! My bro and sis are 8 and 5 years older than me.

So check it out. My friend Jen is a school counselor and is really cool. “The counselor is in” sign means that is her writing her thoughts. Here’s the fi rst one…

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Though there are confl icting opinions on the subject, most experts agree that there is something signifi cant to birth order, meaning when you were born in relation to your siblings (ie: fi rst born, middle child, youngest child). Some experts believe that your birth order has a huge impact on your person-ality traits. As you begin to think about who you are, your place in the family could be very important! Although there are defi nitely exceptions, research shows that oldest and only children tend to show natural leadership, responsibility, and conscien-tiousness (a fancy way of saying that they think things through and are careful with their actions). Youngest children tend to be more outgoing and bigger risk-takers. It is harder to pinpoint common characteristics of middle children, but they often feel that they don’t get the same rights as their older sibling and don’t get away with as much as their younger sibling. They are often peacemak-ers and also secretive. Confused yet?! The point is that you can’t help the order in which you were born, but you can try to understand how it affects you. Like it or not, your birth order is part of who you are and understanding that can help you learn more about yourself. Think about your place in the family. How are you different from your sibling(s)? Do you think your parents treat you differently? .

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I showed up on the scene while Uncle Sam had us liv-ing in Annapolis, MD. Pops was a math teacher at the Naval Academy, and Mom was a tour guide there. In middle school Spanish class, I lied and said I was born in Hawaii. For some reason that seemed way less dorky than Maryland. Did I tell you yet that I had self-esteem issues? How can a state possibly be dorky???

The Navy took pretty OK care of us fi nancially. You even get to go to the doctor free, so I guess that left enough money to buy what we needed and even occasion-ally what we wanted…like my fi rst skateboard in 4th grade!

So that’s a quick view of the situation I was launched into when I came along. It’s imperative that you take the time to explore your past if you want to understand your present.

Now’s your chance to sketch out the scene you were launched into when you were born.

Put an X marks the spot where you were born. Put an M and D where your parents were born. If you don’t know, then try to fi nd out. It would be cool for you to know!

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What was the place like where you lived as a little kid?

Downtown? Farm? Suburbs? Dungeon?

Who were the main peeps around back then that you were connected to? For me, since we moved around so much, my relatives were never super close to me. You might have had an aunt who was always around when you were little, or maybe you stayed with a grandpar-ent a lot.

All this stuff we’ve been talking about is called context- the situation and circumstance you place something into. You know there’s a diff erence between a rhinoc-eros in an African desert and a rhinoceros at a movie theater. It would be awesome, though, to see a rhino

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jack up that annoying girl talking on her phone in the back of the theater! Context played a role in shaping the person you were and are. Your personal context equals the people, places, situations, and events that shaped your childhood. What’s important for you to do is take a little time to understand its impact on you.

In most puzzles, there are 4 corner pieces. In your life, there are also four corner pieces. Your individual com-bination of these pieces identify your personal context.

In my case, some of the main identifi ers of my context were:

A. People = Navy dad, lots of time with mom, bro, sisB. Places = Moved all over the U.S. including Hawaii and

San DiegoC. Situations = Youngest kid, fi nancially comfortable,

CatholicD. Events = 1st got drunk in 5th grade, late bloomer

with girls, skateboarder

And here would be some things that those meant:

A. = Was not super close with my fatherB. = I learned to adapt to people and places quickly,

no hometownC. = Bro and sis thought I was spoiled, didn’t have to

have a job

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D. = Often felt out of place and pushed around

Your turn.

Your 4 corners = Eff ect it had on you

___________________ = ____________________

___________________ = ____________________

___________________ = ____________________

___________________ = ____________________

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“So I still don’t understand the puzzle connection. Why is this book called Jigsaw?” It’s pretty simple, actually. YOUR. LIFE. IS. A. JIGSAW. PUZZLE.

When you start out putting together a puzzle, there are some things you really should do fi rst.

A. Find a big fl at surface away from dogs, random babies, and fans.

B. Have plenty of light.

C. Spread every piece out face-up on the table.

D. Put the top of the box (with the picture) in a place on the table you can see it.

E. Hunt for and fi nd the four corner pieces and put them aside.

F. Separate out the edge pieces.

G. Begin gathering pieces with similar colors into piles.

Sound ridiculous? Well, not if you’re serious about do-ing the puzzle right and as quickly as you can. This is what we’ve begun to do in this book in thinking about our lives and our personal context.

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JIGSAW

If you’re anything like me, you often wish things in life would make more sense, work out better, be less pain-ful, bring less confusion, etc.

Say this:

I will never fi gure out what I am becoming until I know why I am the way I am.

It’s true. You were something. You are something. You are becoming something. Now which thing on that list you made can you do ANYTHING about? None of them. Your past is in the past, and every today becomes yes-terday in only a few hours. On the other hand, what lies ahead of you is nearly limitless in possibilities. By read-ing this book, I can give a 100% guarantee that you will have at least one less painful moment in your future, and you’ll have much more strength to deal with those painful moments that are unavoidable. You cannot control EVERYTHING that occurs tomorrow. But you can make smart choices and reach better outcomes, and you sure as heck have 100% control over how you REACT to what happens tomorrow and beyond.

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Almost everyone has a de-sire to be in control of his or her life. Guess what?…you are not in control! Not what you expected me to say, huh? You do, however, make choices every day that may lead to certain outcomes. For example, if you choose to be best friends with someone who loves getting into trouble , you may fi nd yourself in a bad situation . If you choose to study hard throughout the week, you may get an A on your science test. Notice that in both of those situations, I said “may.” Your choices do have an impact on your life, but life is still very unpredictable! Are you saying to your-self, “Cool, I can do what I want ‘cause it doesn’t matter anyway?” Wrong! Good choices can greatly increase your chances for success in life, but some things that happen to you will be completely out of your control. You have already had things hap-pen in your life that were out of your control. Think about something in your life that was or is out of your control. You may have thought about the fam-ily you were born into, or losing someone you cared about, or someone bullying you. Life is hard, but it can also be so good! Holocaust survivor and philos-opher Victor Frankl wrote, “Everything can be taken away from a man or woman but one thing: the last of the human freedoms- to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” This is one of

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my favorite quotes in the world (you should read it again). I even have a copy hung up on my wall! Sometimes the only thing you have control of in life is your own attitude, and that’s ok! .

Back to the puzzle… Most people, especially young people, have never taken the time to spread out their lives, get plenty of light, and look over the pieces. Usu-ally we get too busy, too scared, or don’t even think about it.

A few reasons you might want to keep reading:

I want my life to be better than it is.

Relationships are sooooo confusing to me.

I don’t want to end up like my parents.

I have always been picked on, and I’m sick of it.

I have great ideas, but no confi dence to try them.

None of the above, but I’m a teenager.

Let me welcome you to chapter two…Discovery.