BB Grey–musings

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Good morning, Thursday.

The week is nearly over. January is already in full swing—by next week, we’ll be halfway through the month.

I went to the eye doctor yesterday. Doctor M has been my optometrist for over twelve years now. It’s a comfort, walking in and not having to introduce yourself all over again. She must see hundreds of patients, but she still remembers me—or at least feigns it well enough that it feels real.

We talked a little about work, hers and mine. I asked about kids. When I guessed they might be in high school, she smiled and told me she has a three-year-old.

Dang.

It made me feel old in an instant. I knew she was younger, but I’d misjudged by what felt like a whole lifetime. She wears her age like a secret, and I’d aimed in the wrong direction entirely.

She updated my prescription—stronger for distance, lighter for reading. I thought about it: one eye for the future, one for the immediate. The problems up close—learn from them, sure, but don’t dwell. Look out. Look ahead. Your brain learns to stitch the two together. It shouldn’t work, but it does.

I slipped in a fresh pair of contacts, and just like that—the edges of the world came into focus. Everything sharpened. The middle held its depth, clear and hi-def. I wasn’t blind before, but now I could see.

Walking out, the birds seemed to sing louder, the leaves moved differently, my steps felt like skipping. Okay, maybe not—birds? Pigeons. Leaves, they were real. And my step in steel-toe construction boots, week-old scruff, and a face that says I just ate something that requires a bottle of Pepcid were likely long heavy strides, but you get what I’m throwing down. Things were better. Tuned.

It got me thinking—how much of life is like that?

You go through your days with an old prescription. Things are okay. You can read, you can see. The fading happens so slowly you don’t even notice. Your eyes get dry. The edges blur. But it feels normal, because it’s all you know.

Then someone comes along—an optometrist for your soul—and slips a new lens over your world.

Shit.

Everything changes.

For a moment, you feel like Superman.

Luna was that for me. When she came into my life six years ago, she didn’t just adjust my vision—she gave me a new way of seeing. Ray-Ban wearing, everything looked different. Better. Even what lay outside the frame felt touched by the light.

It made me think of my marriage—the last ten years of twenty, and the slow dimming that happened for both of us. What had I missed? What had we both allowed to fade because we never thought to get our eyes checked?

The cynics will say it’s only because the old was so dim that the new seems so bright. That if you’re starving, even stale bread tastes like a feast.

But Luna wasn’t bread.

Here’s what I know: sometimes you get a fine-tuning. A new prescription. A lens, a person, a moment that brings the world into focus—and in that instant, you see what you missed.

Don’t stay there.

Take the clarity. Wear it. Use it.

But remember the moment.

You’ll need to call it back when the edges start to blur again.

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