4, or 5 , or 11 left

Sight. Quite simple, really. One of our 5 senses in the common vernacular, or 6, if you include psychic sense, or 12, if you are an anthroposophist. Don't ask, it's complicated. Anyways, sight. Lately, I have been loosing mine. The tv is blurry, I can't read the words on the screen, I can't drive at night, or on cloudy, rainy days, and, in fact, I can't really see the students in the back row of my classroom. Don't tell them that, because then God knows what they will get up to back there.

Not being able to see makes me cranky and tired. It is so much effort to not be able to see the flipchart in a meeting, or the street sign, or the aisle signs in a grocery or department store. I remember a friend of mine saying that at the end of the day working in English, her second language, she was exhausted. My son, who spent 6 days in Quebec, surrounded by french only speakers, talked about how exhausting it was. Not being able to see is exhausting. It is like listening to a foreign language. All day! By 8 in the morning my eye is twitching with fatigue, and the cranky meter goes directly into the red zone. By 9:30 at night I am exhausted.

So, surgery is in the future. Hopefully, they say, replacing the lens to repair the cataract will improve my sight. Of course there are no guarantees. Well, when someone wants to cut into my eye, I would like guarantees. I know? Silly, right? I can be so unreasonable at times.

And I know there are worse things in people's lives. I know that cataract surgery is common. Lots of people are telling me 'It's no big deal'. But I also know that to me it is a big deal. And it pisses me off.

I hate not being able to drive when I want, and I hate feeling helpless in a grocery store. I am 55 for God's sake, and I don't think it is too much to ask that I can see the person across from me in a meeting, or the street sign the gps is telling me to look for, or the fricking time clock on the football or hockey game.

Just sayin!