clearer...

It’s a beautiful day. The sun, bright. The breeze, light. The temperature, perfect for the first day of March. I headed downtown to meet a friend for coffee that turned into lunch. We ended up in a great little hole in the wall Thai place just chatting about whatever. All my bus and SkyTrain transfers were perfect. I couldn’t really ask for more.

All except one thing. My sight. My focus. My contacts became all fuzzy early on in the day. It was affecting my sight. Affecting my ability to navigate. I couldn’t see. It came to a point of desperation.

Because I wasn’t at home and had no contact solution, my only option was water. (If you’re an optometrist or ophthalmologist or optician maybe stop reading now.) When you have fuzzy contacts and no contact solution the only option is to take out your contact and rub it with water. The only problem with this solution… it burns like your eye is on fire when you first put it back in.

You squeeze your eye tight, press on it, let it water, scrunching up your face until the burning sensation is gone. And then when you open your eye, your vision is amazing. Clearer than it’s ever been, sharper than HD TV can ever be.

Maybe it just seems clear because your vision was so bad before… Because the cloud over your eye was making everything painful… Because the lack of focus wouldn’t let you really see anything… bus numbers, leaves on trees, gum on sidewalks, peoples faces, smiles on children, brilliant architecture, amusing billboards, nothing. Everything looked wrong.

So I sucked it up and used the water technique, though painful for a moment the rest of my trip home was much more enjoyable, entertaining, memorable, valuable and I was once again startled by the clear-ness of things.

It’s amazing how much de-clouding a little momentary burning will do.

* Photo courtesy of tracey l heppner photography :)