Friday, November 25, 2011

Buh-Bye Ol' Buddy Ol' Pal

November 22nd was like any other day, except that it was my last day with glasses.  I sat down late that night to write a tribute in my journal that I would like to share with you, and ask you to join me in saying
                                                   farewell to a very, very old friend.

I can say that I will miss their sense of style - even waaay back in the 80s when they were larger than tennis balls and thicker than pop bottles, with a thick red chord tied behind my ears to keep them from slipping down my (then) tiny nose. 

They were always there for me, even when I couldn't see them.  It wasn't their fault they got lost when they were only inches away.  That would have been hard on anyone's ego...let alone a pair of glasses whose entire purpose of being noticed, seen, and assisting in sight was what they were created for.  There were quite a few misunderstandings about this over the years, but we always moved on without much of a fight.  After all, at the time, we were made for each other.

It was the day that the dog got them and chewed through the arms that I knew their life was limited.  Those ones were brand new.  I couldn't keep doing this.  It was a sign that their presence in my life, their importance, my total dependence, was somehow waning, and a new alternative option was becoming very evident. 

Two days post surgery I sit here on my computer and laugh because of all the things that seem to be the same, and all the things that have changed.  My house is dirtier.  The Christmas lights at night are prettier.  And when I see myself now, I've changed.  There is nothing in between me and the mirror anymore, it's just me.  No smudges, scratches, dirt.  I blink, and I'm still clear.  Well, I mean, there is dirt on the mirror that I never noticed before...

I'm soooo happy.  But an old friend of mine is sitting in front of me in a tiny black coffin, and I don't know what to do with them.  A life has been lived with them, like it or not.  They have held a place on my (growing) nose for over 27 years.  I have cleaned them, bent them (bad dream), broke them down the middle (cold day), replaced them, popped the lenses out of them (raking), scratched them, lost them, and found them again.  Many years of sight have been made possible because of them.  But now what?  Do I keep them?  Frame them (pun intended)?  Throw them away?  Give them to a poor blind soul who wouldn't mind the scratches, dog-chewed arms, or customized, one-of-a-kind very high prescription?  I don't know.  I hold loosely, yet I treasure the sight made possible once upon a time... 

Yet, too soon, I will forget a life spent with old limitations.  Now, the same.  But different.  Vulnerable in an entirely new way.  Possibility is now at my doorstep.  New things, great things, are on my bucket list that were never there before. Like running in the rain. And I can't wait to reach what was once very difficult before.

What is your old limitation...once a friend, now a reminder of the past?  How much does your new possibility have in store for you? 

First item on my list:  run in the rain.

"He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it." 
-Phil. 1:16