When I was young, my life was a blank canvas: fresh from the chopping block and clear with possibilities. My imagination ran wild and loose on this empty landscape, and I was free to be anything and anyone that I desired to be. One day, I was the divine princess of Cypress, my home city. The day before that I had been a dragon rider, taming fire-breathing beasts with succulent sweets. The next day I would be an architect. Or maybe a zookeeper. Perhaps a fry cook. My days of youth, fueled by childhood fantasies, dripped with potential like golden honey. In the end, it didn’t matter what I ended up being because my blank canvas was ever-expanding and my dreams ran on to infinity.
As I grew older, my canvas quickly became filled with more defined ideas and aspirations; I traded in my princess and dragon rider daydreams for a more realistic occupational goal as a veterinarian. Upon entering young adulthood, I adopted the practice of many adults of sacrificing present time to invest in a greater future. Although the spirit of my imagination was still as free as ever, my blank canvas stopped growing as a result. Only realistic ideas were allowed to be nurtured and grown in my mind. There was no more room for the ideas that I used to call fun but now defined as mere frivolity. With nowhere to run, my imagination grew weak, caged in by what once used to liberate it: my canvas.
I hungered for freedom. Like blood on my lips, I needed to taste freedom to know that I was still alive. The world had lured me in with false promises of liberty and shackled me down. It added black lines to my canvas that acted as jail cells to confine my imagination. It cut up my canvas into neat little squares so that I would fall into this mass-produced mold of millions and come out as yet another copy. I forgot the person who stared back at me in the mirror. I lost my self-identity. Fear became a friendly face, and it held me back from exploring more of my canvas.
Just when I thought I’d never find my blank canvas again, my freedom to dream crazy dreams, I stumbled upon one in my own backyard. It was in the form of a blank sheet of printer paper. I had no idea how it had gotten there, but the sight of such an empty item, begging for me to carve it with characteristics, got the best of me. I picked it up and ran into my room.
I wrote the rest of the day away. Immersed in the sudden broad range of freedom, I dusted off my imagination and let it run wild again. At first, I scribbled my name across the paper, just my name. I wrote it in cursive. I wrote it in block letters. I wrote it backwards. I wrote it in rainbow markers. It was nice to write my own name, to make a name for myself again. After a while, I started writing stories about princesses and dragon riders and veterinarians who could speak to animals. In this tiny sheet of paper, I was able to reclaim my identity. It was in the world of writing that I found freedom.
With my pen as the vehicle and my mind as the driver, we explored this vast expanse of freedom endlessly. I began to write about anything that happened to be on my mind; writing allowed me to express myself free of judgment or limitation. I was able to dream recklessly again because anything was possible in the worlds that I created on paper. As stacks upon stacks of paper began growing in my room and creating a paper city, my mind became clearer and my blank canvas began to expand again.
Writing allowed me to become more independent and comfortable with myself. Whenever I would go back and read the stories I had written on paper, I was reminded of my big dreams. In turn, this motivated me to pursue my real-life goals passionately. The words I would write on paper began to translate into my life. I learned to pave my own paths and to follow them without abandon. This two-dimensional world of words breathed so much life into me and gave me escape from the jail cell that our three-dimensional world sometimes builds around us.
With each new sharpening of the pencil, with each sharp flick of the wrist, I become true to myself. I have found my blank canvas again, the ever-expanding land of possibilities that we are all born with. And I have sown into it the dreams that occupy my deep sleep and wakeful consciousness. I am free again.
Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Independence Travel Writing competition and tell your story.
