I’ve never had issues with my eyes. (Other than the fact that they’re green and we’re a dying breed.) When I was younger, I used to get headaches and we thought that maybe I needed reading glasses, so we got them…and then I just never wore them. Then 32 happened and I slowly began to notice that the words on my computer screen (these very words I’m giving you right now) were beginning to be a liiiiiitle bit blurry, and the words on my book (you remember books, right?) were a bit fuzzy as well. I just never thought too much about it because….frankly, it wasn’t a priority. I could still see the words, so what’s the big deal? Plus, any work-from-home mom knows the hassle it is to make an appointment for yourself. The timing is crucial, other people have to be involved if you want to go solo…you have to basically ask permission…like a child. So I tend to just not make appointments. (I’m overdue on a LOT of stuff over here….)
But…then I realized that my daughter, my last baby, was about to enter in to preschool for the first time, while our eldest spends his days in first grade, therefore leaving me with 4 hours on my own. (Exciting, right?) And you know what the first thing I chose to do on that very first day of freedom? You’re thinking…sit in a coffee shop for hours, watch mindless TV for hours, catch up with an old friend… Nope. I made myself an eye doctor appointment. (Exciting, right?) I talked to some good, glasses-wearing friends about where I should go and decided to go to Target (it didn’t hurt that it meant I would be inside of a Super Target during my first day of freedom…Exciting, right?) So I dropped off my little lady at school…
and headed out solo to my exciting day at the eye doctor…by myself!!!
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| (Snapped a selfie to send to a friend…look how excited I am!) |
…Aaaaaaaaand went to my appointment, completely naive as to what was about to happen to me. See, here I was thinking I was just going in and the doctor was gonna have me read a couple letters, use that big Short Circuit gadget thing to look into my eyes, write me a prescription and then send me on my way.
No.
Nope.
Uh uh.
She dilated and violated me, that little witch. I was not prepared for that!!! When she put the drops in- those evil, yellow drops- she told me it wouldn’t be all that bad, that all the symptoms would last 2 hours, max. But the worst of it could be gone in 45 minutes or so. OK, no problem. (At least she didn’t think it was.)
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| (blindly took this pic because I wanted to see what everyone else was looking at…eek, now I know) |
So after being taken advantage of and blinded, I was sent to pick out my frames…just thrown into another room, all by myself. Old-lady blind.
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| (picture taken during blindness…) |
(that’s how they getcha, you know- they blind you and then make you shop), I headed out into Target for a little more shopping. Only…I couldn’t see a damn thing. I kept bumping into things, apologizing to inanimate objects, then groping people thinking they were merchandise. I sort of wandered around aimlessly, waiting for my vision to come back, then remembered I had my cheap reading glasses in my purse. I put those on so I was able to read price tags, and look at my phone (all the important things a girl needs to be able to do), and was actually able to find a ton of good stuff on the clearance rack. Ahh, but then I had to go and actually try them on. That was a whole different story. Couldn’t see myself. Nope. I could see my outline and colors, I mean, I knew I was there, but that was pretty much it. And again, the readers helped a little… so I snapped pictures, thinking, I would be able to look back at them later when my vision came back while I was still wandering around the store.
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| (Ha. These were fun to look back on for sure. I basically look drunk, yes?) |
The only problem is that it didn’t come back!!! My vision. I was there, at Target, for 2 hours and still was having some serious trouble. (Is it because I have dying breed eyes? Is THIS why green eyes are going extinct?!) AND I had to drive home. Alone!! Look, I don’t get scared. That’s not my thing. I’m a danger lovin’, risk takin’ kinda gal but that drive home was SCARY. I got home and just kept trying to fix it, I kept thinking that if I blinked enough times, or shook my head around, I would just snap out of it.
And then I went all day and evening still feeling drunk slash hungover and blurry and headachy and eye-achy. It was awful. Just plain awful.
So I ended the day like this…
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| (total day highlight, by the way) |
So…my first day of preschool freedom didn’t go as I initially planned. But…that was only day 1. And in classic Me fashion, I just got too excited about what I thought that first day was supposed to be. I put too much pressure on myself and built it up in my head to be this freedom fantasy day. But news flash- it wasn’t. It never is, is it? Life. Life is never what you thought it would be. You have these ideas when you’re young what it would be like when you’re older- you tell yourself, ‘I cannot WAIT until I’m older and I can do WHATEVER I want!!’ Then guess what? You get older and just have a bunch of other people who count on you for things and you can’t just do whatever you want.
No one can, really. Everyone has to answer to somebody. Tangible or intangible, everyone answers to someONE, someTHING. And isn’t that the way it should be? Doesn’t that then make us lucky? Fortunate? Blessed, if you will? Having someone to answer to, someone who counts on you for things, means that someone cares about you, that someone is in your inner circle, your friend, your family- whether by blood or choice. So no matter how stressed you get with your responsibilities, no matter how late you have to stay at the office to train a new employee, no matter how late you stay up helping your child with their homework, or talking to a friend who just needs someone to talk to for a night, just remember that it only means you are needed. And wanted. And loved. And important. Somebody relies on you for something. Even if it’s just for companionship or a friendly thought every once and awhile.
You are wanted. And loved. And important.
We all need someONE, someTHING to answer to. Look what happened to me when I got too cocky about my independent, alone time. I was a big ole mess. That’s what happens when we try to do too much by ourselves. We become blinded by the taste of freedom, and we take it for granted. What we really need is the perfect balance of support and freedom, of company and alone-time, dependence and independence.
Because without the right amount of balance, we’re just a bunch of blind, old ladies bumping into crap and groping people at Target.
Now here’s a recipe that I could make completely blind-
My scones…any one of my scones. I make them so often that they’re just second nature to me. So, here’s the link to my Pumpkin Brown Sugar Scone recipe, (since we’re coming up on pumpkin season!!!), and there you can find links to many of my other scone recipes as well!!
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