darkness

I fear everything slipping away into the darkness, a black hole of no return.

The worst part about it? It could happen and it is one of those "possibles" that makes me queasy inside, a gnawing with worry kind of feeling I try and shove deeper and deeper inside in an attempt to ignore the obvious.

I was born like any child, except, one eye never "grew up"; as doctors tell me, I never got past newborn vision. My eye muscles, for no apparent reason, decided to never develop and thus atrophied, causing "amblyopia" (lazy eye), except my eye doesn't move around like the pasty coke bottled nerd's did in eighth grade, or like the frizzy haired psychiatrist's did in college.

But it is was all okay, because I had one good eye. It could see with decent 20/30 vision. So while my poor bad eye endured patch therapy and other experimental therapies, hard stabby contacts, and near blindness, his friendly sidekick helped him along and saw for him. Good little eye! Good eye even took one for the team and wore prescription-free glass on his side of the spectacles so that bad eye could have a coke bottle thick lens to kind of sort of see blurs with. Both eyes endured teasing children. Both eyes conspired against the constant torture of optometrists and decided to memorize part of the eye chart so that I became a medical marvel with improved eyesight until they switched charts on me. Bad eye endured exasperated ophthalmologists who couldn't believe bad eye couldn't see the big damned E (first letter on the chart) even with corrective lenses. Bad eye even endured that creepy ophthalmologist that probably kept children in his basement.

I decided to get contacts as a teen and even got one for my good 20/30 eye. The creepy ophthalmologist told me 'contacts are bad for your eyes" and in regular teenage fashion, I ignored him until one broke. In my eye. I had to put ointment ON MY EYEBALL.

Good eye got mad, or jealous of bad eye, and began to deteriorate, but slowly, almost imperceptibly.

Over fifteen years, good eye rebelled and now.... he can't see the big damned E on his own but can with correction. He is estimated at 20/350. Bad eye has either worsened in step, or technology has advanced as he is "past 20./800" and finally the ophthalmologist gave up on the chart and I get the humiliating "how many fingers am I showing?"

My biggest fear is approaching...I am slowly getting more blind. My good eye, with glasses, can't see the clock across the room, or the poster in my friend's house, or street signs until too late. I need new glasses but I am in denial.

 I love sunsets and paintings and my children's smiles and my independence and refuse to accept the "possibles" of blindness. The thought alone makes my heart skip a beat in panic and I simply cannot express how it makes me feel because I don't want to accept it. I will continue to bury it inside as I squint through life.