FILLING HOLES WITHOUT HIDING THEM

Someone warned me about the risks of purchasing puzzles from second hand stores.  

This is my third puzzle that I have assembled from my thrift store purchases and my second of my Bashaw haul.  It is, however, the first to be missing pieces.  The other two puzzles had no missing pieces at all.  I think the most I have had for missing pieces on other puzzles has been two.  Up until now, I have been creative enough to fill the holes and hide them as much as I can so they blend in with the puzzle.  This puzzle challenged me in a different way.  When I finished assembling everything I was given, I was missing ten pieces.  I probably could hide the pieces.  Most of them are in rather insignificant places, so a little colouring would blend them in more, but after some thought... I went in a different direction.  

The more I thought of this puzzle, the more it started to remind me of me.  Some of the elements of the picture painted a portrait of my life.  There is breathing life (the cat), there is imagined life (the bear) and there is a container with unknown contents (the basket) and some added bling (the plate and birdlike container).  All of it is staged for the camera against a rather dull background.  It seems rather orderly, but with the presence of a cat, one wonders how long the order would last.  

Thinking of the stage play that has been my life, I realize that it doesn't appear that orderly for the most part, but sometimes, I am trying hard to make it look that way.  What lacks in the original picture is colour.  That bothered me.  I thought colour was a necessity for me in choosing puzzles, but something called to me in this picture and I added it to my collection.  

In trying to figure out how I would complete this puzzle, I thought maybe I could do something different.  Maybe there was a story in the missing pieces, and hiding them would do a disservice to the story.  I pulled out a collection of sticky notes that I had and went to work.  

This is what the puzzle looks like after some creative colouring.  

What completed this puzzle as a picture of my life is the many holes.  How could I then try to blend in the missing pieces when I haven't been too successful in my real life to blend in the holes.  What could I do with the holes in my life?  Holes like missed people, missed opportunities, missed skills,  health issues, conflicts and wasted moments.  What can I do to add colour instead of hiding them to match the rest of the staged portrait?  If I can do it with a puzzle, it bears further thought as to what is possible with life.