THE Puzzle Story
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
This is the story of where my love for puzzles began, since I’m sure you’re all wondering where the desire to be the fastest puzzler in the world came from.
I knew from a young age that I was really sad. I was a depressed kiddo. We always had puzzles around and did them during the holidays. Once I became sentient, and would start puzzles on my own, my dad would grumble about how he couldn’t walk by the puzzle without doing it. I would set up our puzzle board in front of the tv where I spent most of my teenage years watching futurama and doing 1000 piece puzzles for hours on end. (Editing Ken: if you listen to me yap enough, I start to tell the same stories, sorry). Idk it just quiets my brain, i like how it feels to focus. Me and my headlamp and puzzles against the world.
Puzzling remained constant in my life despite all the changes of early adulthood, although the puzzles themselves came and went. When Taffy passed away in 2019, my sister gifted me a custom puzzle with a picture of us on it. It instantly became my favorite puzzle and the first box that was always on display next to her urn and paw print. No, I don't glue my puzzles together. Each year around the time of her passing, I would put together the puzzle and remember her memories. And grieve. It became my first adult holiday tradition, especially since I spent the season working and alone.
Pet loss, a drinking problem, rehab. You know the story. We did lots of puzzles in rehab, because of course we did. There, I was introduced to the Magic Puzzle Company and saw how awesome and creative puzzles could be. Also, a fun social sober hobby! Over the years, Ginger and Whiskey (and now Cerby) were memorialized in puzzles, so the collection of my favorite puzzles grew. Puzzles that were assembled under every roof that I’ve lived under, something that makes home feel like home. The last time I drank alcohol was in front of a puzzle on the floor the day I moved into my San Diego apartment. Sad, scared, and lonely. Still doing puzzles. Even at my lowest points, they were always there for me<3. When I moved into this current house, I put together my whiskey puzzle before I had even moved my bed. I sat on the floor surrounded by boxes and I sobbed because this was the first time I was moving without her. It feels bizarre to describe a puzzle as such an emotional experience.
I connected with a regular (turned friend) over puzzles, and we started having puzzle club. We have a certain type of puzzling compatibility, where she can figure out where the pieces go on the board, but I can see how they fit together. Puzzles became a way of socializing, spending time with family and friends and yapping. I started doing puzzles almost daily, and being able to complete several puzzles a week by myself. I do puzzles when talking to my therapist, it’s almost compulsive. I believe that everything we need already exists on this earth because of overconsumption, and really hate to buy anything new. Through buy nothing groups, thrift stores, and word of mouth, I have built myself a puzzle regifting network. I had created an endless, rotating supply of puzzles from my community. Somewhere along the way, doomscrolling, I saw a video of someone holding up a completed puzzles. It was my favorite party trick for years. Oh my god, my grandma loved to tell people how I was good at puzzles AND THEN I picked them up. You’ve all seen the photos.
For Christmas 2025, my aunt gifted me this incredible advent calendar of 25 mini puzzles. Each was 108 pieces and a vintage New Yorker holiday cover. These little puzzles were so fun, I didn’t realize puzzles could be so bite sized. I would run home on my lunch break and try to complete one before having to go back. I would FaceTime my mom while doing these little guys and she would comment on how fast my eyes were moving. My aunt was enraged that I did half the puzzles in one day mid November when they arrived at my house. Not sure what she expected, I love puzzles.
As puzzles were becoming a bigger part of my life, Big Brother heard me and started to feed my algorithm speed puzzling content. I went to a casual event at a bar, where teams of up to 4 completed a 500 piece puzzle. I invited a stranger (turned friend) on a whim to compete with me. As the only pair, we did pretty well and finished in 1.5 hours, placing 3/5. As someone who loves competition, I was underwhelmed.
As I was setting my goals and intentions for this new year, I did more research and discovered just how large the world of speed puzzling is. I just knew I had to become king of the puzzles. I signed up for state championships and had about 2 months to practice. I talked about it nonstop and trained daily. For the first time in my life, I was timing myself doing puzzles. I knew I was GOOD at puzzles, I just didn’t have a way to quantify that. I did puzzles of all sizes and redid puzzles a few times in a row. I stopped doing the edges first and started to sort more intuitively. I’m not quite sure exactly what the strategy was. Most of my puzzling experience was larger and more challenging puzzles, so I feel like I unlocked a different skill set by trying to do smaller puzzles, but faster. I always thought puzzles smaller than 1000 pieces were lame because they weren’t a challenge, but what if the challenge was being the fastest in the world?
Yes, I still kind of think looking at the box is cheating.
Okay, so the state championship was a really interesting experience for me. I cried alone in my hotel room the night before because I traveled 4 hours to compete and booked the wrong hotel and was grieving Whiskey (the last time I stayed in a hotel was with her, and I kept seeing her ghost). But god damn I made her so proud when I won first place by completing a 300 piece puzzle in 37 minutes. Yep, my prize was more puzzles. Whiskey gave me a reason and desire to live and heal and it feels good to be able to honor her memory by doing those things and following my dreams.
Nationals was in Atlanta at the end of March and I still am learning how everything works so I watched as much of the live stream as i could. Solo winners were around 30 minutes for 500 pieces. I have competitive times. New goal is nationals next year. Everything is preparation for that. There are only so many puzzles I can do, and I want to compete in a few more state wide competitions in the meantime. Other ways that I’m training to become faster at puzzles include actual strength training and learning to be fully ambidextrous.
Fastest recorded times to date:
All of these times are on puzzles I’ve done multiple times, sometimes in a row.
36 piece- 1 min 29 sec (24 pieces per minute)
100 piece - 4 min 43 sec
300 piece - 29 min 59 sec
500 piece - 39 min 57 sec
I can't wait to see just how far I can go based on my speed alone. I hope to join forces with other fast puzzlers in order to do pairs and teams competitions and maybe find my wife. Who knows what speed puzzling has in store for me. What I do know is that I am grateful to be sober, and the younger drunk version of me would think I am so cool now. Life didn't end when I stopped drinking, and I'm sitting here reflecting on five years in recovery and just how much time I have to accomplish great things.
Happy birthday Whiskey girl, you'd be so proud of me
Love Ken <3
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