I have chosen today to be thankful for my eyesight – sight being an awesome gift on any day, but today my awareness is way up there.  Most days I stumble to the bathroom after the alarm rings and look for my contact lenses.  They’ve been soaking for at least six hours (and if it’s not that long you might go blind when you put them in) in a little container of peroxide solution.  The container has a little cage marked R for the right contact and another one for the left, unmarked.  Putting them in is always a little tricky because of the many odd things those little pieces of plastic can do – like folding themselves in half, turning themselves inside out, fastening themselves to the end of your finger instead of your eyeball, getting themselves stuck in your hair… I could go on.

Today there was no particular trouble getting them in and then began the adjustment from poor unaided vision to somewhat less poor aided vision.  I think everyone gets used to the way the world is supposed to look out of their own eyes and I have accepted the fact that contacts do not give me perfectly corrected vision.  Everything seemed pretty clear within a few feet but as I started walking into larger rooms I had the distinct sensation that I had one overly huge left eyeball.  I couldn’t think of anything that could cause this very strange feeling, one I’d never felt before.  I decided to listen to the little voice telling me that something was not right and went back before the mirror for another look.  It was scary to think it might look as weird as it felt.

I have done things like putting the left contact into the right eye, and vice versa, which is probably good exercise for my brain but is definitely not what the eyes are used to or comfortable with. Hoping it was something like that, I took the left contact out and examined it.  Nothing wrong there. And then I realized that I was actually looking closely at a small thing and was seeing it, which would not be possible without aided vision. There was still a contact in my eye.  I had been wearing two of them, in one eye, on top of each other.  How about that?

See how a little, ridiculous event can suddenly lighten up a day? I don’t have a tumor behind my eyeball! I am so grateful that I can again see at my accustomed level of blindness!  I guess what I’m saying here is that no matter what’s wrong with us there can be a beautiful moment of  awareness of something that’s still right, or nearly so, and that’s a good thing.  Have a great day!