In the eye of the beholder

They say perspective is everything. I remember when I was young. I had very poor eyesight, but didn't know it. In third grade I realized that other students could see the chalk board and I couldn't. We were learning how to write cursive, and I was having problems. I asked my friend Dottie what was on the board and the teacher got made because I was talking in class. I tried to tell her what I needed, but she was a strict teacher and didn't want to hear it. It took another two months for the real problem to come to light. The eye test at school. One of those cover your left eye and point which way the arms of the "E"'s point. I couldn't even see the "E"s. So I went to the optometrist and got my first pair of glasses. (Cat-eyes)

I was amazed at how the REAL world looked!! Everything was different. The Christmas tree lights were clear and not a bunch of colorful blobs. I thought that my blurry, fuzzy view of the world was real. I thought that this was how everyone saw things. Stop lights were a new delight, the walk signal, I had never even SEEN IT. People at the end of the hall, I could see their faces and the buttons on the shirts that they were wearing. I could see FLOWERS. The color of someone's eyes from 3 feet away. Street name signs; I didn't know that they existed.

I had gotten good grades, but I don't know how as I couldn't see the blackboard. No wonder my penmanship was so bad, and still is! The weirdest part was when I went to a baseball game with my dad. I loved to go with dad to Spokane Indians ball games. I was amazed to SEE THE GAME. I had never seen the billboard at the back of the field. I wondered how my dad knew the score! I thought he knew every player PERSONALLY because I had no idea that there were names on the back of the players shirts. My prior "view" of the game was dad, hot dogs and the smell and sound of the game, the crack of the bat and the organist. I loved my view of the game.

The point of this rambling is that in an instant my entire life changed. My view of life was incomplete and wrong, but it was MY view and I thought it was fine, and it was - until that moment when it all changed.

There was one other moment in my "vision-quest", and that was the day that I got contact lenses. I was a freshman in high school, just entering. I had spent painful years as the shy homely girl with the thick glasses. Coke bottle eyes. I got these wonderful contact lenses and went to my first day of high school. Suddenly, people who would never speak to me saw me with new eyes. That was all it took to shed years of being ignored and ridiculed. Suddenly I was seen.

Perspective changes all. So what things are you convinced are the true view and aren't? Who have you judged by your view? What would it take for you to see with new eyes, and what would you do with that view? Or would you pull the blinds down?

See ya later, beautiful

Marlajean