When I showed my husband the finished cartoon, he said that he didn't get why the cactus was so unhappy. Neither did my six-year old.
Here is the whole cartoon, with the caption:
They said he shouldn't look sad at all because he is flying with balloons, which is pretty awesome. But the point was that this is a cactus.
Eventually, the balloons are gonna start drooping, getting closer and closer to those sharp stickers.
When you are miles in the air, suspended by balloons, covered in stickers and wearing a terracotta diaper...how do you think your day is gonna end?
Yeah. It's gonna be messy.
The basic meaning when I was doodling was that sometimes we just know that something we are caught up in isn't gonna end pretty.
The deeper meaning (on reflection) is that sometimes we get carried away by things we can't really control. And sometimes disaster is inevitable and it's not our fault. (Like, he can't help being a prickly cactus.)
All of the obvious advice you could receive in the situation (let go of the balloons; you shouldn't have grabbed the balloons to begin with...etc.) isn't going to help him out now.
Basically, things happen, we can't stop them, and the end result isn't always our fault. We can hope we nail a perfect landing on a feather bed, or someone comes to our rescue, but while we are dangling, we are resolved to witnessing our own shining epic fail.
So, don't be too hard on yourself today, or tomorrow, if things go wrong. Just do your best to aim for that feather bed. And remember...for a brief moment, you were flying with balloons.
So you are still awesome.