A Life

Once upon a time, a baby girl was born. She was a healthy baby girl with a head full of hair. She had full cheeks and a small button nose. She had closed eyes and a dab of red for lips. She had a mother who laughed when first laid eyes upon her face. She had a father who was waiting to hold her. She had been given a gift… a treasure, called life.

Once upon a time, a baby girl was sprouting like a young flower. She was 123 centimeters! The young girl loved to read books and to draw. She loved going to the nearby playground and talking to the old man who sat smoking by the swings. She loved the orange popsicles on hot summer days. She was playful and spirited. There wasn’t another girl as happy as her.

Once upon a time, great wings lifted the girl high. They carried her off across the ocean and through the sky. They let her off at a place so foreign that loneliness and her father were her only friends. Many times she would stay at the local library. There she discovered books.
School was miserable. How can a 7-year-old make friends when she can’t find the courage to say hello? So in her right hand was always a book. When she felt lonely and sad in an unexplainable way, the book whispered comforting words. She’d let these words that no one else could hear hold her tight. She’d let their warmth fill up the empty spaces.
When the lights were off at night, she wouldn’t be able to hear the whispers. On the better nights, she’d transform her bed into a pirate ship or a caravan. On the not so pleasant nights, all kinds of thoughts and fears reached for her from the shadows. She would curl up and listen to her father snore. He wouldn’t abandon me. He couldn’t just leave the house. All his stuff is here. Her tears sometimes soaked the pillow. Why can’t Mom be here? She wondered why she felt so different. She would wonder why her life wasn’t like the girls in the books.

Once upon a time, there lived a teenage girl trying to find answers to impossible questions. These questions would set her apart. But being different was fine; she had grown strong enough to choose the road less taken. Does anyone else question life the way I do? Why do they seem more interested in lunch than life? She was grouped with the misfits, people who realized they were different or rather, unique. The other groups were people who were unique trying to be all the same through hobbies or fashion.
Among those misfits she found true friends, a boy and a girl. Trust and love bound them as brothers and sisters. They changed her from the mobile lump of flesh. Together they tried to figure out their lives.

Most people have probably thought about suicide in an abstract sense before. What would happen if I died? Would anyone cry at my funeral? What gives life any value? The children would then have a topic to brood. They would go walk. We were born to be useful to the world by making skyscrapers and airplanes. They would get ice cream. But aren’t  we worth something if we could explain to a blind man what strawberry and chocolate ice cream looks like when it melts together? They would watch a movie. Is love the purpose of living? At the end of the day, they’d gather their thoughts and conclude. I suppose life is like a diamond. Depending on the person looking at you, you could be just a rock or the most valued item. You could die worthless as a rock- or you can polish yourself into a diamond- by making people love or need you. You don’t have to cure cancer to be a jewel. You could just make people laugh.

They were not Aristotle, Plato, or Socrates. They were just confused children.

The girl sat in a corner embraced by the walls. She was looking at her baby picture, intrigued. Who are you? Why were you born? Is your destiny written on your forehead or is it a path you will carve? Would you carve that path with words or logic? Or would you win your way with smiles? Or would you force your way through with those fists? Where would you carve the path to anyway? And the questions would rearrange themselves and repeat in her head.

The boy and the girl stood in the middle of a football field blanketed in snow. “I don’t know what to do with my life…,” the girl said.
“Who says you have to?” he answered as he flung a snowball at a tree.
“But every choice I make leads me down a different road. If I don’t know what I want then how can I make the right choices?”
“The choices you want aren’t always the right choices. Besides, if you make a mistake you can just walk back.” He said it like it was so simple.
“You can’t rewind life!” The girl found what he said ridiculous.
“Sure, you can’t rewind. You can’t walk back on the same road but you can make a new road leading you back to the same place.”
She still didn’t know what to do. “But… it’s like… I’m standing in a field of snow- much bigger than this. Everywhere I turn all I see is white. I have no idea which way to make the first step and… it scares me more than your father in a bikini”
He chuckled and packed together another snowball. He was starting to understand the feelings and that always made it harder to answer. “If you don’t walk, you’ll freeze to death.” The snowball missed and hit the fence. The snow danced off and settled on the ground. He continued, “You’re an artist aren’t you? It’s just like making the first mark on a piece of paper.”
“I don’t want to gamble with life like that.”  She scooped up some snow.
The boy closed his eyes and said, “Bet you 5$ that snowball won’t hit me from there.”
The girl hesitated briefly before hurling the snowball at full speed. It hit him straight in the face!
He grinned. “I owe you five bucks. Only cowards never gamble.”

Once upon a time, a girl was content with her imperfect life. She learned to spend as much time living life as she did thinking about it. She learned that everyone is special and never to make the mistake of thinking she was more or less than anybody. She learned to live in the present and not to worry about the future that won’t exist without the present or the past that can’t be edited. She learned never to stop questioning life because life has no answer. There would never be an “E=mc^2”, but that’s not the point of questioning life. Life is constantly changing and so are the questions and answers. All the questions are good for is making you realize the treasure you were given.