New shoulds, eye glasses, and response.
Craving the serenity, simplicity and solitude of life in the Himalayas, where I am disconnected yet connect deeply: inner peace should not be altered. I have work to do.
“There is no reason you should not have been prescribed glasses from the time of trauma,” her simple words made total sense.
What I should look like, what I should do, eat, wear, and watch; life has led me to be leery of such directives. They trigger like a thunderous avalanche yet with this, I pause.
The light I have found after years of darkness flickered.
With the same respect for expertise and experience that I held for the Emergency Room team on a grey September morning, I absorb the diagnosis of the soft spoken optometrist. Her words permeate. Inward I travelled.
Change is inevitable yet not of that which has happened in the past. The black eye diagnosis while my brain was bleeding and swelling drew me into years of darkness hiding in my hurt. There has never been resentment nor time given to opinions of what should have followed. What there has been is awareness, learning, a change of perspective and, now an undeniable change in vision.
Half of one eye is doing the work of 2 healthy eyes. She compliments my recovery though questions why protection of my good eye was not prioritized. Inward. I cannot argue her query yet dispute recovery. To recover is to go back to something. Not interested.
Feelings have no shoulds. Just be.
My mind drifts back to the Neuro Trauma Unit, that stale, frigid box, where after the black eye was found to be the blood from my brain making its way through broken bones. The fractured skull healed yet memories remain far from faded. My most recent eye checkup had ended in bruised knuckles, copious tears and a silenced relationship. Scarring, the frustration and denial did nothing then. Today, my response is different. Inward.
Stoic. Thoughts of the questions and should haves, I crave the himals.
Pouring rain in a city unknown to me I wandered aimlessly in a department store that houses the eye clinic. deterred by the elements, being a houseguest returning to a house full, yet a sense of loneliness hovers.
I have shifted from anger to acceptance from that which I have lost to that which I have gained, I wander aisles of shoes and shampoo, pillows and potatoes simply wanting to be. Craving the serenity, simplicity and solitude of life in the Himalayas, where I am disconnected yet connected deeply, I know inner peace should not be altered by settings or opinions. Struggling to find it outside of mountains, I have work to do.
Tom Stevens says:
Jill’s writing is astonishing. I have seen her wordsmithing grow to an elite level that bestselling authors only dream of. I will be the first in line to buy the book I am anxious for her to write.