“All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.” ~ Leo Tolstoy
I find myself drawn to both light and darkness, and by this dichotomy I am often perplexed. I guess it explains my fascination with the idea of shadows. And the moon. In cryptic prose, I often reflect on the topic of pain. Maybe if I finally chronicle this story, I’ll be able to let the pain of the past go…
The wizard ~ I was peering through the lens of apprehension as my eye appointment neared the shore of reality. Perhaps I was less than optimistic because instead of one, it had been two years since my last visit. But eight tests, four cornea specialists, and two hours later, everything appears to be fine. My eyes are “quiet” as the wizard says. Unbeknownst to him, that’s how I refer to my eye doctor. A world-renowned surgeon. A miracle worker. A man who once told me in his dry sense of humor, “I don’t have a crystal ball,” when he couldn’t conjure up a vision of my future eye health for my peace of mind…
(…continued) Concern about a spot on my eye. “That’s just scar tissue from the wound when we did your surgery. We see that a lot after cornea transplants.” The sound of that word struck me. Wound. With his ocular wand, the wizard cut into my eye to fix what was wearing away. The disease is gone, but the graft…the remedy itself…was a wound. Scars are the proof and price of healing. It’s been almost 12 years since surgery…hard to fathom. We don’t always see the scars from our wounds right away. Injuries, traumas, or difficult situations may not manifest the scars until years later. This puts a twist on time healing all wounds. Does it really? Or do we just learn to live with them? Do we avoid our emotions when we feel the wounds are simply too great a burden to bear?
The eyes have it ~ Since childhood, I would have frequent spells of severe eye pain without warning. Like flipping a switch, I would wake up in nocturnal misery, my eye dripping involuntarily with tears. I would have to avoid the light in the hours that followed. I had less pain in the dark. I didn’t get a correct diagnosis until I was 24. Recurrent corneal erosion AND a rare degenerative cornea disease in both eyes. It looked like I wouldn’t need a cornea transplant until much later though…in my 80s, they said. One year later…“You now only have 10% left of one of your corneas, and if (when) it perforates, you could go blind in that eye.” I was shocked by the aggressive progression in such a short time frame. The craziest part was that this news came less than two months before my wedding day. Cue all the tears and fears…
Part 1 ~ A laser procedure that occurred 29 days before our wedding. A liability waiver to sign, accepting the outcome of this experimental procedure that had not even been approved in the United States yet. “It’s had some success in Europe,” they said. They hoped it would at least buy me some time. Of course I was scared, but I had no choice but to be brave. The memory of that day is rather blurry except for one glaring detail…the large metal clamp holding my eye open. Afterwards I told my parents, “I want to cry, but I’m not allowed to.” The emotionally healing properties of tears would have hindered the healing of my eye, so I had to be tough…doctor’s orders. My mom said she wished she could switch places with me and take on the pain herself. I definitely didn’t wish for that. On the slow road of recovery, I wasn’t able to participate much in that glittering summer of my own wedding preparations. I sat and watched it unfold without me, through the narrow opening of my bruised and swollen eye. Honestly, so hard for a hopeless romantic bride-to-be to do. That’s probably when the bitterness started creeping in…
Part 2 ~ A few months later, I made the obvious yet difficult decision to get the transplant. When I think back, it makes me cry even all these years later. I prayed for a miracle of divine intervention, but was given a gift through organ donation. My memories surrounding this second procedure are a little more vivid than the first. So much pain. Post surgery, I quit my job because I couldn’t stare at a computer screen all day. Vision: blurry. Depth perception: distorted. I couldn’t drive for seven months, and I rarely left the house. So much rapid change…marriage, new house, new state, new jobs, new church, new people. First big move for me, and hours away from home. I didn’t know I would be so homesick, and I didn’t know how to deal with change like that. And then…major surgery. I could say much more here, but suffice it to say it was a dark time. That’s when the bitterness took me out to sea…
Sensory awareness ~ The sound of silence on Shady Lane. The visibly moving shade of darkness from keeping that eye closed for so long. Pain from the stitches that felt like course sandpaper scratching the inside of my eyelid. Bringing my diamond-studded finger within a few inches of my eyes and staring at it to test the clarity of my vision. Blurriness. Thirsty for some light but more comfortable in the dark. An abrupt change in the way I heard music…new sensory stimuli were awakened. Savory and sweet scents wafting from my kitchen. Being sensitive to the wind and all that it brought along with its gusty movements…irritants trying to blow away my joy for life. Glancing around doctors’ office waiting rooms after being affectionately labeled “the only person here without an AARP card.”
Fear of rejection ~ Suddenly the life of adventure we had imagined didn’t seem so sensible. The experience changed me, and new fears came into view. Fear of getting hit in the eyes. Risk of transplant rejection…for the rest of my life. Wondering if I’d have to go through this again in the future. It was like being in a river of darkness with a blanket of fog for comfort. This was supposed to be the happiest time, but the honeymoon had quickly phased into depression. If we were a racecar speeding down the drag strip of life, my eyes were quickly rolling up the windows and applying the brakes. I hated this reality. We made a few emergency road trips to eye specialists due to post-surgery concerns: always a scary time with the thought of my vision hanging in the balance. I just wanted to wake up from this dazed gray haze…this was not how I had envisioned life would be going at age 25. My idealism was screaming inside; a new voice had silenced the old me.
Shadows ~ I didn’t have the fortitude to work through my emotions back then. I felt alone, and I felt something I didn’t have a name for at the time. A feeling I shudder at. Even years later, I couldn’t seem to shake that feeling. It was like a demon staring back at me in a mirror of shadows. A dark formless silhouette with two red little beady eyes, casting shadows onto my once glittering rose-colored dreams, whispering unsavory nothings. A midnight confrontation. Even though this situation was out of my control, and even though I knew I was strong and had overcome so much, I still heard, “You’re broken. You’re too much, and yet not enough. You’re a burden.” Shame.
Hindsight ~ This whole experience affected other aspects of my life in ways I can’t even begin to describe here. It will always be a part of me, but I don’t let it define who I am anymore. After wrestling with the shadows and processing all of this in my own time, I feel like hope is now shining across the shore to illuminate the way. It has been a long winding journey, but discipline with mental and physical health has helped adjust my outlook in positive ways. Over time, I’ve been more able to accept change as a natural part of life. And yet, it would be gratifying to have some clairvoyance as to the purpose of this elusive struggle of which I still feel the weight. The wait. I guess you could say hindsight is not yet 20/20. Should I chalk all of this up as an overarching spiritual lesson in patience? What I do know is I’m forever grateful to the donor and doctor who saved my vision, and my family and friends for helping me make it through. I often wonder about the donor…who they were, and what their life passions were. What an amazing gift I received from them. I’ll never take my vision for granted.
Change ~ If a wizard could have given me a glimpse of all the changes that would transpire over the course of the next 12 years, I would not have believed most of it. Time is a mystery, and sometimes I feel like a stranger to my former selves. (Reality can be hard to live in when your childhood fantasies were a future mental residence of wrought iron black furnishings offset with eggshell white walls. In reality, reality is wading through gray paint.) It’s impossible to predict the changes that might come about in our future. Do we ever really have any control, or is it a mere optical illusion in the mirror on the wall of our minds’ eye?
The wind ~ Perhaps situations in our lives are like the wind…
Tornadic activity wildly warning us to run for safety. Capricious air constantly changing temperature and direction. Mad, blustery gusts blowing up in a rage of randomness. Kill-joy comments sneaking through an open door like a bothersome breeze. Thunder and ice fighting it out in an unfortunate snow storm. Judgmental opinions from the void, stinging like a sharp winter wind that takes your breath away. Expelliarmus! Cool maniacal laughter of mockery, coating the city with smoke and ash after a forest fire burns what’s innocent and beautiful. So cruel.
Yeah…change can feel something like all of that. But change can also be a gentle breeze rippling across the river at sunset. Lumos. A realization that you are that light across the shore, and this musing is merely your past selves reflecting on how far you’ve come. If you find yourself caught up in the wind or under clouds of multiple shades of grayness, the silver lining proves that the gorgeous golden ball of goodness will break through to blue skies again. Let go of the idea of holding onto the wind. Stay grounded.
The wound ~ Bringing our wounds out into the light reveals the scars, which can be painful to look at. It’s okay to feel our very real feelings and to not always want to look on the bright side. If we don’t feel and grieve it, we can’t heal and leave it. Maybe harboring this experience has weighed me down over the years. For me, writing has always been a way to close the distance between feeling bitter and feeling better. But it took me 12 years of shadow work to finally find the words to write this story. Maybe writing it out is a symbolic release of depression and fear, and a wholehearted embrace of self-compassion and courage. Overcoming. Re-framing. Maybe this whole experience has given me a greater appreciation for possessing the gift of feeling emotions deeply. Maybe this is actually about more than what meets the eye. What we ultimately do with our pain is up to us. We can let it close us up or we can let the light shine through it. A glimmer of what the struggle has been for...
T W I W T L S T
Blue Moon Muse 