Kindergarten Canvas

My work of art stood proudly before me; in vibrant crayon colors, I had drawn my future. I had decided my future with only five years experience in the world.
The crayon displayed it in near-scribbles. The towering mansion peering down over my backyard. It's eyes darted to the pond with the exotic fish, then the gigantic trampoline, next to the waterpark that inhabited whatever was left of the green grass. My family stood in the middle of it; the mansion looked at us too. It found my face, the two lines on either side of my head yellow and my face as bright as the happiness that I so deeply felt; then it saw my husband, a perfect gentleman, my Tuxedo Mask; and then our children, playful grins on each of their faces.
I believed it with every ounce of my being then. Why didn't I believe it now?
I was convinced of this for seven more years until I came to the realization that I couldn't pull through on my plans. Over time after that, the mansion faded, the pond and fish, trampoline, and waterpark followed. My husband and children disappeared not soon after. I stood, still smiling, by myself, in the middle of the dying and aging grass. Was I too old for an imagination, for hope in such a life?
For years later, I'd convinced myself that I was. How could any other being make me truly happy? How could I have had created such a face and decived myself for all of these years it was worth aspiring towards? Was there even a purpose in this world for such a selfish being?
But then the sun with the smiley face I had drawn in the top left corner of my paper burned with an intensity that I could not doubt. It highlighted my grin, revealing its true depth. Everything whitewashed, and I disappeared, too.
Images flickered across the canvas like a film; pictures of the present and past.
Maybe there was a purpose in this world for such a being; maybe there was hope for one in a fantasy future.
I realized this: Things come out by your hand. You have to put faith and responsiblity into what you are creating in life. Life doesn't have to be unbearable. No circumstance can keep you from reaching the smiling sun, but if you don't make the best of the bad things and do what you can to the best of your ability, there's no point. And let what happens, happen.