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I don’t know if I’ve ever written about my vision on here? Don’t know if I ever had a reason to until now? But if you were wondering, my vision was terrible up until a week ago. My vision started to decline in my left eye around the 8th grade and then the right eye started to go in my late teens. I wasn’t blind as a bat, I just couldn’t see far away at first. Then things started to get blurry up close. I was supposed to wear glasses during the decline. I never did. I started to wear them in my early twenties until I got sick of them and got contacts. I can’t stand glasses, sunglasses or contacts. And I have these ridiculously long eyelashes that would fall in between my eyeball and contact constantly making it feel like someone was stabbing me in the eye. Good times. So after years of this nonsense I decided to get LASIK. iLASIK like the astronauts to be exact.
I went in last Friday during the long Memorial Day Weekend. The procedure itself is pretty simple and almost completely painless. The prep work of appointments and eye exams before and after are the real hassle. But the iLASIK procedure takes less than 10 minutes on each eye. So I was done with the procedure in 20 minutes. Now here’s what this T-pisode is all about. After the procedure you have to keep your eyes completely shut for two straight hours. And you can’t fall asleep during those two hours. Because your eyes move like crazy (REM) when you’re asleep and that would cause problems with your new “flaps” rubbing against your eyelids. So I spent about 15 minutes in a room after the procedure then the doctor let me go. Of course I couldn’t drive with my eyes closed so I had a ride. I got home about 30 minutes after that. So now I had to sit still for the next 75 minutes by myself on my couch with my eyes closed and without falling asleep. SO…that meant for ME…NO work, no writing, no talking (I was alone now), no texting, no T-blawg, no working out, no social media, no TV, no sports, no movies, no…NOTHING. A guy you all know by now who is always busy, always doing something, always moving was forced to do NOTHING in darkness, in silence for 75 straight minutes. My phone alarm was set. The first 15 minutes were brutal. I felt like I was losing my mind. Then something happened… For the next 60 minutes I found this calming peaceful feeling. I never felt like this before. Because I never allowed myself to be still like this before. When I first moved into the city and got into Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and later dirty boxing, one of the techniques I had to incorporate into my training was meditation. At most I did about 15 minutes of meditating during that time. And in THIS moment in those 75 minutes, I realized I hadn’t meditated in about 5 years. I know what road I’m on in my life. But at that moment I felt like I was lost and found my way back. Crazy talk, I know. But I put out every woman, work, writing, health, friend, family, finance and career issue in my life for a solid hour. I found peace inside me that I hadn’t had in a very long time. My brain and mouth were both off and I felt like I knew I was certainly handling most things well in my life. Other things I realized I messed up. And I made that peace with myself. And then I hit the light at the end of the tunnel and the alarm went off. Just like that. My LASIK procedure not only brought my vision back, but it helped to unexpectedly center me. Damn homey.
I’m about a week into life after iLASIK and I couldn’t be happier! The goal was 20/25 vision and it turns out I now have 20/15 vision. So I have like superpowers now. Not really. Just better than 20/20. I haven’t had the time to meditate again. I got right back into the craziness of my life and I don’t know if I’ll find the time to meditate again any time soon. I hope it isn’t in another 5 years though. But right now at least, I feel centered. Peaceful. I could be reacting to a lot of things going on in my life right now in a totally typical “T way” but instead I’m calm. Because I can see differently now. In more ways than one. I leave you all with recommending both iLASIK if your vision is terrible and meditation if your chi is all out of whack. Das it for now!
Until next time. Always take it there.
T
T-blawg 