On eyesight
I got a pair of glasses for the first time recently. It was the conclusion of a long saga of going to the eye doctor and getting a prescription, then buying a pair that almost fit my face but not quite comfortably, so I adjusted them and adjusted them until I couldn't wear them at all without my ears hurting, and then ordering a new pair of cheap glasses which took a month to arrive. But they're finally here, and I can finally wear them. And it really is a delight.
I had perfect vision as a child, and I think that the worsening of my vision is partly due to the pandemic, when very little of life extended outside of one room; partly due to my work habits of long nights coding in a library study room sized to fit the desk in it, with few breaks; and partly due to depression, with me simply taking less interest in my surroundings and not using the muscles to focus on things far away. Realizing that my eyesight had gotten worse saddened me, because it was something I had prided myself on as a child taking car trips with my grandmother, when I would point out our destination and she would say "good eye!" I used to look at constellations, standing outside my childhood home at night and staring straight up and turning around, trying to find the three stars in a straight line that make up Orion's belt. I didn't notice those constellations disappearing - or rather, moving to DC for college, the night sky was rarely dark enough to see stars anyway, most often staying a muddy orangish-tan color even at midnight, and when I would return home over breaks and look at the sky, I assumed, pessimisticallly, that the light pollution had simply gotten worse or that the weather was poor. I didn't see my vision as being the thing that was getting worse until sitting at the kitchen counter, looking at the clock on the oven, I could no longer read the time.
The first time my pair of glasses arrived, I felt sad to need them. My vision was getting worse! It has gotten worse due to habits, how could I break them? I just needed to control what I was doing when looking at things, and stop the downward trajectory. I felt sad about all the details I was missing, all the things I couldn't see when I took my glasses off, and I felt scared of losing my eyesight. What if it just kept getting worse and I couldn't hold on to it? I tried to wear my glasses as little as possible, both because they hurt and because I didn't want to admit my eyesight was bad.
Instead, hyper-conscious of my eyesight, I did eye training exercises and exercises to measure the progress of my eyesight. Living in a dorm room with communal bathrooms, every day I would stand at the sink farthest from the door and look in the mirror, focusing my eyes on the fire alarm just behind the door, and see if I could read the reflected letters. I could usually tell that there were four letters, with the second one being an "I", although sometimes after a long night of work with no breaks for my eyes it looked as though there were three letters, with a large space between the first one and last two. Some days, though, my eyesight was better, and I could see that the first letter kind of had the shape of a backward "F" and that the last one looked like a "3" or backward "E." I could never tell that the "R" was backward from looking at it, that was too much detail. I noticed my vision tended to be better right when I woke up, or even after resting for half an hour with my eyes closed, than it was at any other time.
And it helped. I noticed, looking out of my dorm room window across the football field, that I could read the numbers on the players' jerseys from my eighth-floor window. I could see the serifs on the giant logos printed on the side of the field, and I could even detect letters on buildings all the way across the field. I changed my work habits to pay attention to my eyes and take a break from my work when they felt tired or when it had been too long. My vision is more important than my productivity.
Yesterday, my new glasses arrived in the mail, and I felt so happy seeing the world in higher detail. The package arrived in the evening, as it was just getting dark, and I was able to enjoy the sunset with the silhouette of tree branches against the yellow line of sky. I was able to see friends' faces from all the way across the dining hall, rather than needing to get close to recognize them, and when I went outside I could see all the markings on the moon. All the spots the moon is supposed to have. It felt rewarding, like finding a favorite possession returned to me. And it was, in a sense - I've recovered all the craters on the moon.
Today, walking back from the math department's building, I heard a squirrel eating something. Turning my head, I located it in a short tree, and using my glasses I was able to see that it wasn't eating nuts, it was eating seeds from the tree it was sitting in. Keeping an eye on me, it would scamper to the edge of the branch, break off a cluster of hard red seeds, and then eat them in that furtive way squirrels have, holding their food with both paws like they're worried it will be stolen. It made me think, what would life be like to be a squirrel? You get to hop from tree house to tree house, with free food growing so conveniently for you in the wide-open buildings you live in. Every home you have has an excellent view.
The world becomes so much more of an interesting place when you can see better. Even my posture has improved -- spending more time looking at things on the horizon means holding my head high, standing tall. I feel more confident now, more in control of things, just from standing in a different way. We shouldn't take them for granted, the little things that make up our world and our ability to enjoy them. They really are something precious and special.