J said - Complecency

Sometimes you get so comfortable in one state of being, whether it is a true state or not, that being removed from that state can be rather unsettling. I had forgotten..almost... what it was like to be visually impaired. I'm not legally blind... or even close, but without my glasses or contacts the world becomes a big scary places full of faceless creatures and a narrow limit of vision.
I can't remember the last time I was without my vision supports for any period of time not of my own free will.

This morning...being dehydrated as I always am in the morning (and almost all the time it seems) I rubbed my eyes irratibly.. wondering why one was itching so badly...I went to the bathroom, and discovered that one of my contacts had torn...so for the rest of the day I had to go with one eye in and one eye out.

I expected the headaches...they come anytime my eyes are tired of being open or are strained the least bit...but what i didn't expect was the loss of vision. Yeah.. I could still see through one eye, but it was more what I wasn't seeing that startled me. Looking down at the keyboard and having to tkae a moment to focus...looking up at someone and having to turn my head so that the 'good' eye could see who they were. I have lived in my contacts for such a long time (going to bed with them in..showering..all that stuff the doctor tells you NOT to do) that I had almost forgotten just how bad my vision is.

After a while, my brain began to try to make up for the lopsided signals that were coming in to it...now EVERYTHING was blurry...I couldn't focus without making my head throb...I was off balance and mildly nauseated...all from the fact that I had torn a tiny piece of paper thin plastic.


I can't imagine what the world would be like to me without sight. I think that it would be a very scary place.. full of sounds that couldn't quite be interpeted..

dear god.. what good would the internet be to me? I would be cut off from all of my friends..those who have been a support and a comfort to me. I would lose the ability to read... to write.. to take pictures...almost everything that I love..and value.. would be taken if I could not see. How different I would be...


My complacency has been shaken...no longer can I read.. or write.. or simply gaze off into nothingnes without being thankful that I have eyes to see. The littlest things make you value what you once ignored...


J.