Grateful for Corrective Lenses

I am grateful for corrective lenses; that I can see the world with full human clarity; that I can avoid the blur of my base vision. My vision is poor. If I were to live in a time without corrective lenses (the bulk of human history), survival would be challenged if not dismal. I am lucky to live in a time where optical technology is able, accessible, and affordable. But furthermore, life and death aside, I am lucky to have the visionary tools to enrichen the experience of life.

I’ll never forget the day and feeling when I put on glasses for the first time. I was fourteen years old. Outside the optometrist’s office, I stood on a green lawn underneath a lightly leafed tree. The sun loomed overhead without a cloud in the sky, just an ordinary day in Southern California. When I put my black and thick-framed glasses on, I immediately took them off. I put them back on again. Oh, the discovery! Oh, the deliverance! Born again, I saw shape and color with the inquisitiveness of a child. Hello tree. Hello world!

I can try but in truth, I am incapable of imagining life without sight, and a good one at that. Vision is my window into the world. This window was once blurry and now this window is clear. As much as I appreciate having experienced the former, I am gladder to live with the latter. With corrective lenses, I can see clearly. I can’t envision anything better than that.

I am grateful for corrective lenses.