I Used to Think I Was the Missing Piece

When I first got sober, I thought the hardest part would be the not drinking. Turns out, it wasn’t. The hardest part was sitting with the reasons I drank in the first place. The hardest part was seeing the ways I bent myself into someone else’s missing piece. Over and over. Until I forgot I was whole.

There’s this book – The Missing Piece by Shel Silverstein. If you haven’t read it, it’s deceptively simple: a circle is missing a wedge and rolls around trying to find the right shape to fit. But every piece it finds is too big or too small or not quite right. Until eventually, the circle realizes it’s better off just being as it is – rolling forward on its own.

I used to think I was the wedge. That my purpose was to fit into someone else. To be what they needed. To patch the leak, clean the mess, soothe the ache. I thought if I could just fit into someone right, I’d finally be okay.

Spoiler: I never fit. Not really.

And instead of realizing I deserved to be whole, I blamed myself for being too sharp, too soft, too much, too broken.

Sobriety made me face that. It stripped the illusions. It turned the volume down on all the noise I used to use to drown myself out. It forced me to look at who I was underneath the chaos – and realize I wasn’t a piece of anyone. I was a whole story. And some chapters hurt like hell.

There were run-ins with the law. Crying on the floor with mascara in my mouth and wine and/or vodka in a water bottle. Apologies I meant and ones I only said because I was scared of being left. Nights I don’t remember, mornings I wish I didn’t.

But through it all, there was this quiet voice – Marie, therapy, my mother’s love, my dogs’ soft breathing – that said: You’re allowed to be whole. Even now. Even like this.

And I think that’s where love really starts. Not in being someone else’s salvation. Not in chasing a partner to “complete” you. But in seeing your own shape clearly. In choosing not to contort anymore. In knowing that real love – whether it’s from someone else or from yourself – won’t ask you to shrink.

So maybe I’m not the missing piece. Maybe I’m the whole damn circle. Still rolling. Still learning. Still healing.

Not perfect.

But not missing anything, either.