Corrective Lenses

Mr. Skyles, my fourth grade teacher, sent a sealed note home with me one fine school day.

Perhaps because I was a rather compliant child I would’ve never dreamt of steaming open a teacher’s note but I sure was curious. Mr. Skyles expressed his concern that I was not able to read from the chalkboard and noticed I was holding my textbooks up close. Neither of these things had I noticed myself.

My mom had a full-time career back in the day when other moms wore their aprons and spent quality time reading Betty Crocker. An immediate appointment with the eye doctor was scheduled and corrective lenses were prescribed. I’d like to think that I rocked those Cat-eye frames but I hated them. By the time I hit junior high they were stashed in the back of the dresser drawer.

Fast forward to my eye exam with a specialist just a few weeks ago. At the conclusion of the comprehensive exam I was pronounced to have 20/20 vision and asked if I’d had a LASIK procedure! What? I still haven’t stop laughing over that question!

Just this morning I chose to watch a little TV while waking up. The screen seemed so out of focus and my vision was blurry so I squinted, blinked, rubbed my eyes, reached for an old pair of glasses, tried cleaning those glasses, but the blurriness would not go away. I was worried and wondered what was wrong with me.

You know what? It wasn’t me. The program itself was out of focus. Blurry. If I’d had a LASIK procedure on the spot it still would have been out of focus. What I saw right in front of me I allowed to play tricks on both my vision and my mind.

Here’s the thing, it’s not always you. There will be times when everything in you will think that you are the one out of focus. But perhaps only the Clergy and psychologists and therapists among us know why we doubt ourselves so easily. Why we can be so quick to try to fix ourselves, telling ourselves that there’s something off, something wrong with the way we’re seeing things, never imagining that the object of our gaze is indeed what is out of focus.

It’s not always you, baby. Be aware of that. It’s not always you.

I can see clearly now.

❤️ Happy Valentine’s Day! ❤️