April 14th, 2017

Jams and jellies. Potions and lotions.  Whatever you chose to call them, this is the shelf where I keep the stuff that I use to help to keep the ravages of time away.  Well, to be fair, time, life, weather, stress and years of M&M consumption.  I'm aware that I'm only, at best, slowing down the inevitable.  But I'm not ready to throw my hands in the air, say "to hell with it" and throw these products away. Not yet.

I'm grateful that these products are available to me. And like brushing my teeth, I'm in the habit of using them twice every day. Still, using them is, apparently not without risk. Well, not if you are me.

Before you read the rest of this tale, remember that I have an entire lifetime of clumsiness behind me.  I am the girl who, as a child, walked smack into a cast iron post at Knotts Berry Farm and knocked myself cold because, I just didn't see it.  I've broken so many toes that some of them are now just bone crumbs.  I, somehow, am incapable to walking down a hallway without ricocheting off of at least one wall and although I'm rather small I bounce off of every doorframe I walk through. So nobody will be surprised at what happened to me yesterday.

You may have noticed (or maybe not) that I didn't do a blogpost yesterday.  Here is that story. I do not look good in this story. Feel free to laugh.  To tell the tale properly, I have to back up a little bit.  Tim occasionally has to travel for work.  This whole week he has been in San Diego.  I understand that he has to travel. I support him doing whatever is necessary for his work. But, regardless of all logic, I cannot sleep when he is not home.

The house is too big, it's too empty, it just feels weird and wrong and on top of my usual insomnia, I struggle to sleep even more when he is not here.  So, if you do the math, by Thursday (yesterday) I was in major sleep deprivation mode.  Totally functional, but silly and clumsier than usual. Now keeping those facts in mind, it's not hard to imagine how I, accidentally, while applying my moisturizer, I somehow managed to stick a finger into my eye.  Not just a finger, mind you, but a finger with moisturizer cream all  over it. ARGH!

Searing pain. I cannot even describe it properly, but immediately all I could do was sit on the bathroom floor gasping for air.  Once I got hold of myself and could think, I stood back up and blindly made my way to the sink to begin flushing my eye with water.  After a bit, the pain subsided down to a tolerable level but of course the eye has it's own protection system.  It began watering uncontrollably, which is a good thing. 

Now I cannot see out of that eye at all at this point and I have a tear flavoured waterfall on my face. There is nothing else really to do so I groped my way back to my bedroom, dressed and then peeped back into the mirror with the one functioning eye.  The left eye was swollen shut, the right eye was squinting with, I suppose, sympathy pain. Oh well, I'm sure it will pass.  I left the bedroom and went to my computer to begin my day, as per usual, with my blog.

As soon as the computer light came on, the pain intensified again.  OK, got it, light sensitive.  No lights on, not even the computer light. I left blinds closed, lights off for a few hours and wandered around the house, not able to see on that side.  It was an interesting experience. 

My depth perception is already poor.  Without that left eye it was nearly non-existent.  Very Interesting.  I found that I actually was able to maneuver around the house better with both eyes closed rather than with just one open, albeit very slowly. I did use my hands to find my way a little but not as much as I thought I would.  It was more to orient myself.  I'd think to myself, "I'm in the living room" then  raise my hand the slightest bit and meet a piece of furniture and think, "Yes that's the sofa on my left so it should be only two or three steps before turning left" .  It was fascinating.

As the day went by, my eye got better and by afternoon, although it was still a little tender and light sensitive, I could see again.  Today it feels fine. Hurrah!  And Tim gets home tonight. Bigger Hurrah! 

And that eye has no wrinkles whatsoever!

Deepak Choprah famously said, "There are no accidents, there is only some purpose that we haven't yet understood".  Sigmund Freud would have indicated that there was some deep, underlying, subconscious intent to the old finger-in-the-eye trick. Napoleon Bonaparte suggested that, "There is no such thing as accident; it is fate misnamed."  But then, in King Fu Panda, Oogway said, "There at no accidents" to which Shifu responded, "Yes I know. You've already said that twice."

All of which teaches me, what?  I can find my way around my own house without looking. Ok that's kind of cool.  Also, the world will continue to spin without me posting my blog.  Good to know.  But more importantly, be realllllly careful while applying moisturizer!

Keep that in mind, people. Be smarter than me please!  AND, have a wonderful weekend