Glasses

I recently noticed that my eyes are not quite working how they used to. It came to my attention when I could no longer recognize people that I saw across campus. I waved wildly at one girl who was walking past and as she got closer I realized that she was not the girl that I had thought and was trying her best to figure out how on earth I knew her. At that point I figured it was time to get my eyes checked.

Turns out I have a slight stigmatism and could use glasses. They were not crucial, I could see fine without them, but I had a harder time making out tiny print and objects far away. The eye doctor gave me a choice to either pay for glasses or to see how long I could go without them, but since I went to college in Nashville where everyone is trendy and it is normal to have unique fashion, another accessory sounded fun and my parents wrote the check. I picked out some cute, fashionable, blue ones and began to enjoy the many compliments on how cute I look in them. I am so glad that I did not need glasses in my awkward teenage years or they would have definitely been the opposite of a fashion accessory like these.

Actually most days I completely forget to wear my glasses unless I have a headache and blame it on my eyes. I can go about my life as normal, and since I can see fine as far away as a normal classroom wall, there isn’t even a need for them in school. Although they are legitimate glasses I really do use them more as an accessory than something useful. But when I do use them, the subtle difference in my view of the world is noticeable: everything is clearer and I do not have to strain so hard to read signs on the road, I actually recognize my friends who pass on the way to class, and I feel shorter. Yes, something about my depth perception really does change when I wear my glasses and I feel closer to the ground when I am walking outside, believe it or not. There is one thing I noticed about wearing glasses that is more serious than figuring out how short I am, however.

I do not realize how fuzzy my world is, how dull around the edges and muddy things are until I look through a different lens.

Think about that for a few minutes. How often do we settle for a fuzzy reality without realizing how fuzzy it really is? We get used to what the world considers normal life, and then when something changes our view for just a minute, be it an emotional experience or something gorgeous that we can’t take our eyes off of, we suddenly see that there is something more than our bleary idea of life. We think we are living, but there is a whole universe that we have only seen a corner of. People are amazingly complicated and confusing but we settle for “I’m good” and “Nothing much” instead of asking what is really going on. We are ok with looking through a bleary lens and we only notice when we turn our head and find a clearer spot on the glass. We are very used to settling.

I’ve noticed that when I put on my glasses, shift my view of the world for a minute, and decide to look at life from a different perspective it is much more interesting than I originally thought. Sitting on the couch reading a good book or vegging is not boring or pathetic, it is taking advantage of the opportunity to relax. Going to work as a waitress is not just a way to make money, it is a way to serve others and find out more about the people I work with. School is not just something to finish so I can go into the real world, it is an opportunity to learn more about the world I was born into, and I can always make time to connect with a friend no matter how busy I get because people are interesting and wonderful and it takes more than a lifetime to find out everything there is to know about someone. The world we live in is covered in a film, and when we take the time to peel it back for a moment we are privy to the glory of a God infinitely creative and good. So every time I am surprised by how clear things are when I put on my glasses, I hope it is a lesson that there is something shiny and beautiful and glorious that I hardly even glance at when I go about “living” and I should celebrate and explore this world instead of settling for schedules and deadlines. There is more to this life that we usually don’t even notice.