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can you see me now?

I have been wearing glasses for just over 53 hours - slightly less, I guess, because I don't wear them when I am sleeping. I have been a faithful contact lens wearer for many years now and wearing glasses for more than a few hours at a time takes some getting used to. I even went to see a movie last night with four eyes and it was fine. However, once you are used to the consistent sharp vision and effortless clarity that contact lenses offer, completely unfettered by frame lines, what I see through my glasses seems to be a cheap imitation.

The reason for this sudden change in what I put in front of my face in the morning is that I am going to the Montreal Eye Clinic tomorrow for a consultation regarding laser eye surgery and the tests require that I be contact-free for three days. I have had myopia since I was a teenager and it is just something one lives with. Optometrists become your friends, and pupil dilation and sticks with yellow dye on them pressed onto your eyeball don't scare you. And even though I basically know the eye chart off by heart, I have never cheated in an eye exam.

My thoughts the night before these tests are mixed. I would love to wake up every morning being able to see clearly, but, silly as it sounds, there is something that I would miss about the occasional state of being oblivious to anything except what is right in front of me. When I was acting, I used to do so sans glasses because that rendered the audience one big blur and I would not get distracted. Staying in character and really getting into the play were so easy when my sight line stopped at the edge of the stage. Is that a bad thing? I suppose the good part of it is a desire to single-task, to be wholehearted and present and focused. The not so healthy part of that is the fear of not being able to turn off my sight when I would rather not see, of remaining blind and oblivious and ignorant because it is easier not to be confronted with certain things.

I have asked God to heal my eyes plenty of times. So far, nothing. A generous gift from someone dear to me means this procedure is now a definite possibility, so I am exploring my options. Yes, I want to see better. No, I do not want to get so accustomed to my imperfect state that I turn away from healing or restoration in whatever form it is offered to me. Sometimes I think my yearning for wholeness is altogether too weak. God, forgive me.

These are my nifty red glasses on top of the laptop.

UPDATE: The consultation was most informative and after 2.5 hours of tests and interviews, I decided against the procedure. It seems that correcting my distance vision to that extent would mean that I need to wear reading glasses and really, the point was to get rid of glasses, I thought. Back to pursuing wholeness in other avenues.
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