The Lucky Girl in the Red Plaid Glasses

I wasn’t too bright and I was very quiet and shy, but I was a pretty little girl - so all was well.

I remember as a two or three year old chasing after all the black dots and lines I saw. Are you familiar with “floaters”? You see dots and lines – it’s really shadows of clumps of vitreous on the retina. It is unusual to have floaters so young, but I did. No adult knew that, though.

By the time I got to elementary school, it was clear that this shy little girl was a real dummy. Into the slow reading group she went.

I remember in first or second grade, trying to memorize what the teacher was saying because evidently she was doing something on the big board in the front of the room, but I had no idea what. It is, indeed, much slower to learn when you have to memorize everything instead of reading the blackboard.

But I didn’t know what I didn’t know, so I didn’t complain. Anyway, I was shy.

Somehow in third grade, the teacher and my parents began to realize that maybe I couldn’t see well. What a revelation!

I loved my new red plaid plastic glasses. I could see, and soon I was able to move reading groups.

As the years passed, my glasses got thicker and thicker. My parents, especially my father, were early adopters (I didn’t get those genes), so I always got the latest, thinnest variation, but they were still thick.

When I was 13, something new was invented: contact lenses. I remember when I got my contacts, I looked into the mirror and for the very first time clearly saw my face without glasses. It was a miracle. I was elated.

Over the years, I have worn many types of contacts, always trying to get my vision crisper. My vision has been around 20/800 in both eyes for a very long time. I blame old Great-Aunt Sarah. She was renown in the family for her coke bottle bottom glasses and for walking into things. I did indeed inherit those genes. Fortunately and thankfully, my vision could be corrected well enough, and I could go through my life pretty much like anyone without vision problems.

Then along came the cataracts. The world got blurrier and greyer. Night-time driving was hazardous. Depth perception was very iffy and steps became perilous.

This week I had my second cataract surgery. It is truly a miracle. I see clearly for really the first time in my life! Modern medicine is a wonder and we who can take advantage of it are so very lucky. I feel exactly as I did when I got my contact lenses at age 13. I am absolutely awed.

The girl in the red plaid glasses is truly a lucky girl. I often think that if I happened to be born into a poor family in a third world country, I may have been sent out to beg or worse. 90% of the 285 million visually impaired people in the world live in low-income areas. Imagine how difficult their lives are.

Not only am I just lucky for where and when I was born, I am lucky that I could take advantage of all the technological and scientific advances that came along. I am definitely adding Prevent Blindness to the list of charities I support.

Noticers, we know how critical our vision is to our work, but also remember what Mark Twain said:

“You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”

So let’s practice Noticing until our imaginations are 20/20!

©2016 Margery Leveen Sher

The Noticer’s Guide to Living and Laughing…..Change Your Life Without Changing Your Routine is now available on Amazon, Nook, and iTunes.  Read the reviews and purchase here. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OZTM73U

MARGERY IS AVAILABLE TO KEYNOTE YOUR MEETING OR CONFERENCE with a motivational talk filled with both startling wisdom and humongous laughs:

“Notice What You See and Be a Hero at Work”