“Well, you’re practically blind.” The eye doctor looked over my paperwork. “We haven’t seen you since 2014, and your prescription hasn’t changed. This makes you a prime candidate for Lasik.”
Identity Crisis at the Eye Doctor
Back ramrod straight in the eye doctor chair, I blinked. From where I sat everything fuzzed out. Without human engineering, I wouldn’t be able to see my hand clearly within a foot of my face. But, Lasik?
“Lasik changed my life.” The doctor sat in front of her computer. “Now, when I wake up in the middle of the night, I can see the clock.”
“Oh, wow.” The words tumbled out of my mouth. But what if I didn’t want to be able to see the clock in the middle of the night? Thoughts collided in my head. Lasik had never been something I had considered for myself. Other people did Lasik.
“If you’re interested in Lasik, we can get you set up for it.”
“Thanks.” I gulped. “I’ll think about it.”
But who was I if I wasn’t blind? So much of my life had been spent with poof ball Christmas lights under the Christmas tree, and the soft fuzzy world of early mornings, blinking into wakefulness. Friends would claim that they, in their perfect eye sight, could experience the same magic that I spoke of, but I know they can’t. When I wear contacts and squint, lights go sideways rather than becoming the halo orbs of nearsightedness.
Suffice it to say that I’m not going to be getting Lasik any time soon. I like my glasses. I like my contacts. I like my nearsightedness.
But it brings me back to identity. Because who am I if I’m not blind? From a very young age, I’ve had this super power of nearsightedness. (Some would not agree)
Identity is important. We all know that. For most of my life, I identified as a homeschooler, and then, I attended college. Suddenly, I was the same as everyone. Who was I? I joined choir and theater. Problem solved. But then, I graduated. Choir and theater couldn’t come with me. So who was I? Identity seems to always be evolving…some things stay but most go away.
My nearsightedness has been a staple of my life. My gender, too. My brown hair. My brown eyes. For a while, I was a band kid. A previous academic turned athletic? WHO AM I?
Isn’t it odd how we get shaken up when something that felt forever is not actually?
For me, I settled into the truth that my truest identity is as a creation of the most High God. He calls me daughter and renames me. And I love that. That doesn’t change. I mean, it could. But that’s only when I choose to reject it, but His love would be constant anyway (and the inconsistency would be me).
God’s love for the world, for me, is not based on who I am but who He is.
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