At one time or another, we have all held a pencil, crayon, marker, or paint brush in our hands. They’re amazingly simple tools that create life from a blank page. My favorite utensil was colored pencils, bright and colorful, unlike regular pencils, dull and boring. I use the color blue most of all; it was my favorite color, the color of the sky, the sea, and the earth.

I started art at a young age, and I’ve always liked it. It’s not like I was thinking about expressing myself back then. I just enjoyed creating drawings, and seeing my family smile when they see them, even if they weren’t by any means good. I’d like to think that I drew simply to make people happy. But my real motive was nowhere as selfless. It was to make me happy.

That day, I was drawing and coloring the usual. A smiling sun in the right hand corner. Definitely a bright blue sky, And maybe some green grass on the ground. I want to become an artist.

Oh. Something dropped. I looked down, and saw that my blue colored pencil had fallen on the ground. The lead broke off. I sharpened it. Broke again. My grandpa told me that the pencil was useless now. No matter how many times I keep sharpening it, the same thing will just keep happening. My favorite pencil laid there, lifeless. I didn’t want to do it, but my grandpa was right. I threw it away. Instead, I picked up a regular pencil and decided to draw a few gray clouds to fill up the empty spaces.

That day, the sun didn’t smile at me, and I didn’t smile back. I no longer dreamed of blue. I accepted reality of life. The sun doesn’t always shine. The sky isn’t always clear.

I still wonder what might’ve happened if I had just kept trying, just a few more times. Maybe I could’ve saved the pencil. Or maybe not. I’ll never know.