Around the seventh grade, my eyesight had become so poor, that I was forced to wear glasses all the time. Originally in fifth grade I had gotten glasses to help me see the chalkboard at school. I didn't wear them then, deeming my glasses to be "uncool." I paid a worser price when by the end of the eighth grade year, I officially donning glasses at all times.
I grew to love my glasses, and still do. In many ways, they're part of personality. But they aren't me. I've always said that my eyes are my favorite thing about me... The way they change in the different sunlights or the way the green turns into a rich brown dependent on my mood. I love my eyes, but they've also spent the past 12 or so years hiding behind a pair of glasses. Yet today, I woke up and without putting on my glasses, I walked myself to the window, pulled open the curtain, and admired the moon and the stars for the first time without my glasses. Beauty doesn't even begin to describe the emotion I felt in admiration of the night sky. Back in the fifth grade, when I had first placed my glasses on my face, one of the most profound things I ever experienced was when I realized that trees had individual leaves. To anyone who has perfect vision already, this may seem unbelievable. I remember asking my mom if all trees had leaves like this and if the night sky was always so perfectly crisp as I then could see it, but only with glasses. I had spent the first 11 years of my life in some sort of nebulous haze. I had seen so little. And yet yesterday, as my nerves abounded me, I felt overwhelmed with the excitement I'd soon get to experience. Back in late October I finally agreed to have LASIK, something I had debated doing for the past decade or so. For awhile I opted against it because I was fearful, and then I opted against it because I felt self-conscious of my face without glasses. Finally I accepted it as something I had to do. My glasses held me back, quite literally prohibiting me from seeing things completely and fully for what they are. Today, I woke and I saw. After my half-hour long procedure yesterday, I sat up in the surgical chair and I immediately noticed I could already see my doctor's face. His cheeky smile welcoming me into the world of sight: sight without glasses. He asked me if I could read the time on the clock from across the room. It read 15:37... a profound moment of recognition: I could see. When I awoke this morning, finally able to open my eyes on my own and to look around, I didn't have to reach for my glasses. Things are clearer and crisper, but the simply amazing and astonishing part of it all is that these are my own eyes. I can see with my own eyes. It's liberating, humbling, incredible, and quite literally miraculous. Someone once told me that my eyes are my life's greatest investment, and today when I woke, I suddenly realized exactly what that meant.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
"I have no special talent.
|