vision

I bought my first pair of reading glasses today and while that feels strange to admit (because in my head, I am still like 32) it also feels a bit like a rite of passage. A normal aging thing after all the weird illnesses and meannesses my body has inflicted on me. Honestly, I was a little excited by the normalcy of it. Finally, something that everyone for the most part will deal with eventually!! I wasn’t desperately in need of these glasses. I only really need to wear them when my contacts are in and even then I can get by. I mean, I am able make out the words on my screen or on the page…just not as easily as I once could. So I procrastinated…longer than I should have. I grew comfortable in my discomfort because it was easier than taking the steps of solving the problem.

It was sort of like when I was sick because of my inner ear, my car got out of hand messy. I mean unbelievably so. I was embarrassed just sitting in the car by myself let alone if anyone else had to see it. But I was sick and didn’t have the energy or the desire to fix the problem, to clean it out. So, I ignored the mountain of water bottles and magazines and books and more and just harbored by discomfort because even though it made me sort of miserable it was easier to drive the false facade around than solving the problem, easier than taking the time to clean up the mess inside.

When my ear was a bit of a disaster, I knew there was a surgery that could fix it but it terrified me, so I did everything else instead. I tried every treatment available except the one that would be nearly guaranteed to work. Chiropractic, Acupuncture, Essential Oils, Physical Therapy, TMJ Treatments, and more. All desperate measures to avoid the one definite fix. Why would I procrastinate when help was available? Who knows, really? I could tell you it was because of the cost of the surgery or that it was so close to my brain that it scared me, but the truth is that neither of those is the real answer. I was somehow simply resigned to being miserable and blinded myself to the solution.

I think we do this all the time in various ways. We table our issues, our anxieties, our concerns and just learn to live with them, rather than really dealing with them, rather than taking the steps to actually cope with them. We are willing to accept the false feelings of ease rather than work to uncover what might be a thorny path to healing, recovery, rest or health. Forgetting all the while that though the thorns may sting and intensify the misery in the short term, they are also necessary points along the way to healing…to a clearer path…to the river of rebirth that allows us to cleanse ourselves of whatever ails us.

When I put those glasses on my face and I looked down at my phone screen today to see if they really helped, I was entirely astonished at the clarity and precision of the words on the screen. I had not realized just how blurry things had gotten until a new lens, a new perspective allowed me to see the truth of the matter. And I sat there for a minute just wondering what on earth took me so long and how many more times will I fall prey to the laziness of accepting unnecessary discomfort…

“Autobiography in Five Short Chapters” by Portia Nelson

(Day 13–exhausted from a very long week, but still found a moment to knock this one out. Not my most careful writing, but happy to have it done).