Seven years ago, when I first started writing this blog, my first post was about having just had Lasik eye surgery. I had plans to snorkel on an upcoming vacation and was thrilled about being able to see the fish.
Everyone will tell you that at some point after you have Lasik surgery, your eyes will once again need some kind of correction. Although I sense nothing now and still see very clearly, I think about that. What an inconvenience glasses or contacts will seem like after what will likely be a decade or more of not needing them.
And while inconvenience is relative, I began wearing glasses and contacts at the age of fifteen. The annoyance of preparation and planning ahead as a teenager and young adult sticks in my head. But more so, when I think about this potential inconvenience coming for me now, I remember how freaking adaptable I was then.
In fact, I had squinted at the chalkboard (yes, classrooms still had chalkboards when granny was in school, youngins) for a while never realizing it was so bad until one day a friend next to me took off her glasses and set them on her desk. I picked them up and put them on, who knows why (” God! Who knows why teenagers do anything!”- my mother/all mothers probably), and realized that, no, not all the letters appeared to have fur growing around them. They were quite clear, actually. Somehow I’d passed eye exams and never bothered to question all the… fuzziness.
So I ran home that day and told my mother I needed glasses immediately. And contacts. For sports, you know. All the sports I tried but was never really good at but still sat there anyway acting like it was a damn good time, smiling like an idiot. And let me tell you, it is a damn good time when you can see clearly what is and isn’t flying directly at your face.
(Aside: Also, after I got glasses, the first thing I did was look at the mountains. You see, I live a stone’s throw from the mountains. I could look out the window right now and see the individual tree tops on the mountains, which are just a few miles away. But before I had glasses, I still saw the mountains but not the detail. Not the tree tops, you guys. So when I saw that for the first time in who knows how long, it was like, WHAT? TREE TOPS? SO THIS IS WHAT YOU GUYS SEE EVERY DAY? WHAT THE HELL?! It was an emotional moment.)
But I never knew what I was really missing. I just adapted. I had a perfectly fine time being fifteen (well, you know, with impossible hormones and emotions and ALL THE PROBLEMS). Me and my fuzzy letters were relatively fine. So when I think about that now, about how I’d just adapted without really thinking about it, I am kind of amazed. We hear it all the time, how kids are adaptable, flexible, quick to accept.
It makes me miss being that way.
I miss adapting without having to think about it. Because I think of all the things that happen now, how the thought of once again needing glasses or contacts again annoys me, and how, of course, I’d get used to it, but I’d have to think about it. I’d have to consciously practice adapting to a new way of life rather than just doing what’s necessary.
It makes me want to be better. If it is a product of age, being annoyed, fine. I can handle that. But instead of dwelling there, can I just move forward? Can I adapt? Can I act as if there is nothing I can do about the truth because, well, there actually isn’t? I want to. I want to think like that kid with 20/100 vision before she knew she had 20/100 vision.
Here’s to being more blind to what’s hard, and moving forward in spite of it.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I remember looking out the window the morning after my cataract surgery and seeing the individual leaves on the trees, so clearly without big fuzzy halos around them. It was magical. So I can well imagine how your 15 year old self felt about those tree tops.
Ironically, at the age of 38, I just got my first pair of glasses. After a lifetime of not needing them, I finally acknowledged that I did. And my world is finally clear. I couldn’t be more thankful for my new lenses. But, I only use them as needed and can see what a pain it would be if I needed to wear them all the time. I hear ya, though, on things finally being clear – no longer needing to squint will help keep the wrinkles away, too! =)
Your last line is fantastic.
Part of me was thinking “ignorance is bliss” as I read this. I think part of the adaptability of childhood comes from not knowing any different/better. But as adults, we have so much more life experience to compare things to. We’re smarter and I think that often makes us more rigid. The other thing that crossed my mind was how much adapting takes place when you’re a kid. You’re constantly growing and changing – routines and schedules and teachers change. It seems like there is a lot of room to tone those adaptability muscles that maybe falls away when we’re adults and set in our day-to-day lives.
I totally need glasses and have been putting off going to the optometrist for about 3 years. Mr. W gets on my case constantly. I’m not sure if its my fear of adapting – or just pure laziness that’s holding me back.
I got glasses and then contacts at age 7. Wore contacts all the time until 2001 when I got Lasik. It was great to not have to deal with contacts any more but around 2007-08 I started noticing I couldn’t read the board if I was sitting in the back. So back to glasses and contacts it was, with the added difficulty now that because of the surgery my prescription is very hard, if not impossible, to attain in contacts… So now I don’t see clearly at all
I’ve adapted, I guess, but I’m still not use to it.
Here’s to that, indeed! I am so not adaptable in my old age. Or maybe it’s more that I know more so I can’t be/seem as flexible?
I think we can adapt to anything. Having moved across the world and back again within the last 6 months, I found that it only took a few weeks to settle into whatever place I was. Even when I was so not happy about being back in the US and totally fighting it, it was only a week or two before I fell into my old habits and wasn’t constantly thinking of Norway. I think we are more adaptable than we think we are.