So, sometime this summer, I was considering getting Lasik eye surgery. As you may or may not know, my vision is not so good. I'm nervous about the surgery, sure. But I hear from all the cool kids that there's lots of perks to being able to see well:
· Not having to carry around two pairs of glasses; one because it matches and one in case the lens falls out of the first one, as it often does.
· Not having to carry around prescription sunglasses as well.
· Not having to be two inches away from the mirror to put on eye makeup.
· Being able to watch movies while laying down with head on a pillow. Ooh, I hear that's nice.
· Not having to push said glasses back up nose every 10 seconds because they keep slipping down.
· Not having to clean glasses ALL the time, because they manage to get dirty even when I'm not doing anything even remotely interesting.
· Being able to see things outside these tiny circular frames without having to turn entire head to do so.
· Not having vision instantly fogged over every time I: step out of a car when it's humid outside, open the dishwasher right after it's finished, or just get out of the shower. Wouldn't that be wickedly cool?
· Being able to buy cool, new, in-style sunglasses purely for giggles.
A person with good vision has 20/20, which is what I should get with Lasik. People who are born lucky have 20/15, which means that what a normal person can see from 15 feet away, they can see it from 20. So let's say someone had, I dunno, 20/60 vision. That's not good at all. What a normal person can see at 60 feet, they have to be 20 feet away to see it. No bueno.
My vision is 20/800... if you can imagine. (Well... it was 6 years ago. I know that it's gotten worse since then. I haven't dared to ask my eye doctor for a number again.) So, what a normal person can see from 800 feet away (that's almost 3 football fields, mind), I have to be 20 feet away to see it. Da-yum.
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| My vision-ish with glass and without. This isn't really an accurate representation (obviously because things change depending on the lighting, distance, size, etc.)... but... it's what I might see if I was standing, oh I dunno, less than halfway between us and where the photographer was standing--so 4 feet-ish. |
But you know, there's something very calming about not being able to see. It sounds a little nuts, but I like taking off my glasses to enjoy the blissful nothing, not having to focus on anything. It's strangely freeing. I like to do it when I'm riding in the car (while somebody else is driving, obviously hurr hurr), and just let the world pass by in a smooth mixture of nonsensical color. Lights--particularly at Christmas--are especially beautiful this way, in how they glow and melt together, like tiny, colorful suns, suspended in the air.
To not wear my glasses is to appreciate life at its most basic levels: simple colors and shapes, all mish-moshed together to make a strangely beautiful and almost painterly whole. Perfect vision all the time means there is nothing left to the imagination; there is no more guessing, no more possibilities. Everything is exactly as it appears.
I dunno. It's sort of impossible to describe...
If I had the option to wear contacts, I would, believe me, but I don't. They don't make them for my prescription. So I have to choose between glasses (troublesome eyewear but peaceful nothing) or Lasik (perfect vision with no more mystery). It shouldn't be a tough choice, but strangely... it is.
To see, or not to see, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the eye to suffer
The cones and rods of outrageous vision,
Or to take lasers against a mist of blurriness,
And by opposing fix them? The eye, to see,
Forevermore; and to see is to say we end
The head-ache, and the thousand to twenty acuity
That eyesight is heir to: 'tis a surgery
Devoutly to be wished. The eye, to see;
To see, perchance to clarify – ay, there's the rub:
For in that clarification what images may come,
When we have shuffled off this hazy fog,
Must give us pause – there's the respect
That makes calamity of so crisp sight.
(I could go on, but I'll stop now.)
