For Granted

                  There are things in life that have happened to me that I think it take for granted. Like I have two loving and supportive parents, who have always been there for me and kept me on the straight and narrow without killing my artistic side. Many people, more than I like to believe, come from broken families. Sometimes I take money for granted. I am not by any means rich, however, my family has been well enough off that I have never wanted for anything in my short life. Again I could name on two hands the number of people I know whose situation is as polar opposite from mine as can be. In my short 20 years of life there is, though very small, one thing that I have never taken for granted. My eyesight. You see it is hard to take for granted what is slowly slipping away. When I entered the second grade all those many years ago, I started to know what the phrase "I can't see" really meant. Not in relation to standing behind someone taller than you in a line, or attempting to see far off into the horizon like my parents. No this was a loss of physical sight, things were starting to get blurry. And so I got my first pair of glasses. When I then say that from that moment on my eyes began to deteriorate, I do not mean that as an exaggeration. Over the next 12-14 (can't exactly remember my age when I got them) years of my life I went from one prescription a year, to two and then to three. My eyesight was worsening at an astounding rate, even more astounding in that mine were the only eyes in the family to be doing so. All other family members with eye problems did not develop them until their mid to late 40's. So why was I different? Why was I heading toward total blindness like a bullet train without a conductor? After a while I stopped questioning it, the glasses simply became a part of me.
                 As I got older and began to discover the challenges that come with getting older, I started to use my glasses as a security blanket. Unfortunately, I have a very expressive face. This face shows exhaustion, anger, happiness, and even malice without hesitation or provocation. Behind the thick frames of my glasses it was easier to hide these things. Oh the happiness showed through in my smiles, sadness in the way my shoulders dropped, and even anger could be spied in the clenching of my fists. I suppose my whole body is expressive. But it was the malice that I wished to hide the most. The snide comments I made in my head that created lines of disgust next to my eyes. The look of extreme disapproval or worse as if I was looking down on you when I allowed myself to ruminate on how I actually felt about the people I dealt with. Don't misunderstand I am not a mean person by nature. But I am not confrontational. I would rather say something that I know would sooth your frayed nerves then speak my mind and jump into an argument. There are very few people I argue with, almost none of these people reside outside of my family. Now it is harder to hide this side of me. I don't have the thick frames to cower behind when I feel my spiteful side raise her ugly head and sneer at someone I know I could verbally punch into the ground. Maybe, eventually I will get better at hiding her again, as I haven't had to in the past. So I can not take for granted the protection that my glasses brought me, even as they hindered me in life. Loosing them was like being pushed into a lake without the ability to do more than dog paddle. I would not immediately drown, but as the time past and I could not find them the panic would rise, my strokes would turn wild and I would eventually sink. I have had more than a few panic attacks over missing glasses. Now that will no longer be an issue.
               So I must be grateful, and I am immensely so. I have never received a grater gift besides the gift of life. My eyesight has now completed me, I am as perfect as I can be. But still, part of me worries for that selfish, malicious part of me just under the surface. It will be harder to hide her now.....I'll just have to learn.