New Vision

I really shouldn't have. I don't have an income. But I did.

I went to the eye doctor to try on a pair of contacts.

I wasn't going to, but the woman sitting at the front desk looked so kind through the window. She smiled at me and not many people smile at me! So, I opened the door and stepped inside and forgot that I'd been fired from my job. I forgot that I didn't want contacts. I forgot how to say...no.

"Walk in?" she said.
"Yes," I said.

She handed me a sheaf of papers and a pen and I checked many boxes and signed my name several times. I looked at the door and thought: "I should go. I should just get up and go. Why am I doing this? I don't want to stick things into my eyes, right? Right. Go. I should just go."

BUT I STAYED.

Then I was in chair and shaking Dr. Beamen's hand and he told me to rest my chin on a strange contraption and look up and down and this way and that and past his ear. Once in a while, I caught a glimpse of his eye, magnified. It looked like an egg, sunny side up, the yolk blue.
And then before I knew it, a contact lens rested on my fingertip. Thin. Clear. Fragile.

Dr. Beamen told me to hold my eye open with one hand and carefully insert the contact lens with the other. There it was, inching towards my face. A disposable contact lens.

My first attempt was a failure. The lens crashed into my eyelid and fell onto the floor. Dr. Beamen handed me another lens and again, I raised it to my eye. Nope, this time, my eyelashes swatted the lens down my finger and into my hand.

An hour later, the contact lenses were in my eyes.

I put my glasses in a case and walked out the door. Dr. Beamen told me to call him in a week to see if I wanted to order a years supply.

I can't count how many times I've reached for my glasses today only to find that they weren't there!

When Warden licked my face, he licked my eyes. I've never felt his tongue against my eyes!

I don't know whether or not I'll keep wearing contact lenses, but it is nice to have people I know, like Belle Star, come up to me and say, "You psycho! What'd you do different today? You look..off!"

People recognize that I've changed somehow, even if it is a physical change they note and not a mental/emotional change.

And it's kind of nice... : )