I’m sitting here tonight, July 28th a little past midnight, thinking about my vision, because it’s going to be fixed in the morning soon after I wake up. I’m wearing my glasses, like I have for years and years and years, and I keep taking them off and looking around at the blurry room around me.

I keep wondering… am I going to miss how blurry this is? It’s bad vision. I can’t see the mirror across the room, or the number on the scale when I weigh myself in the morning, or captions on a TV, or even the words I’m writing right now. But it’s my bad vision, I guess. I grew it myself! And now I’m going to be fixing it myself. I wonder if I’ll be overwhelmed, or if it’ll just… be. I’m probably being dramatic about it. But it does feel like the end of an era, and saying goodbye to a (flawed) part of myself.

Cami said to me when I told her I was going to do it, “wow, really, I’m surprised… you’re a glasses girl.” And I am, I have been forever, but particularly in the pandemic when I lost the interest in the effort of putting in contacts somewhat regularly. Glasses have always been my “let’s relax and just wear these today” look and contacts have been my, “okay we’re putting in effort today” look, and now… that decision just won’t exist for me anymore. The Effort with a capital E is going to be done tomorrow and it’ll just be my face and me now. It’s wild to think about.

Back in college when my sleeping habits were horrid, I almost lost my vision. My eyes turned gray and my eyelids were scratchy against them, and from wearing eyepatches to zapping them with very medicated drops, they went through some rough times. That period (a solid 10 years ago now, wow) made me so deeply grateful for the ability to see. I’ve been so protective of my eyes ever since then, and try to intentionally appreciate art and colors and faces as much as I can, because you never know when that’ll go away. It makes me nervous for the zapping tomorrow. But thousands, probably millions, of people have done this before, so… statistically speaking, we should be good, heh.

Anyway. Goodbye, crappy eyesight. I can’t wait to be able to hang out at a beach and wear cheap sunglasses and not have to worry about sand getting in my contacts. I can’t wait to shower without glasses and see my legs when I shave them. I can’t wait to rub my eyes when I’m sleepy and not have to think about moving a contact lens around. I can’t wait to not be nervous about going down stairs because my depth perception won’t be warped between my glasses and the blurry space between my actual eye and the lens. I can’t wait to be able to lay down on a pillow watching TV with no glasses frames pushing against my skin, and be able to fall asleep without worrying about taking my contacts out before doing so. I can’t wait to wear a VR headset and not have to think, “am I wearing the skinny glasses so my head can fit in these?” I can’t wait to wear headphones and not have to choose based on which ones push my glasses frames in weird ways. I can’t wait to put on makeup and not have to push my face 2 inches from the mirror while I do it. I can’t wait to see Joe make his silly faces in the morning that he does when I sleep in and he’s trying to sneak up on me. I can’t wait to hug people and not have to worry about their hair getting caught in my frames.

Tonight, I’ll appreciate the blur. Tomorrow, we’ll celebrate the clarity!