Today was quite an event for me.

I've apparently got some kind of eye infection (gross, I know, but I had to share the story...), which just came about this morning. I normally wouldn't share something like this, because all it seems to be is a mixture of an infection and sinus, and quite gross. However, the original discovery of it was...traumatic.

I woke up feeling something in my eye, leaking out, but I just thought it was the morning stuff people get. My mom had woken me up and just left on an errand, and I went to the bathroom mirror to check it out. Turns out, some kind of "substance" was secreting from my eye...all around, not just in the corner. I was grossed out and worried, and I went to tell my dad. Now, he and I don't share half the medical knowledge my mom has, so we were lost. I went back to the mirror to check on it again, after putting eye drops in, and I suddenly felt very sick to my stomach. I started to worry about that, too. Then, I began to see those purple stars in front of my eyes (those of you who have rubbed your eyes very hard probably know what I mean...?), and things started to get dark. Now, this happens when I stand up too fast, but never in any other situation, and never when my eye is "leaking."

This is probably the punch line of my story, but at the time, it was one of my most scariest moments. I immediately thought of Ray, the movie. Those of you who have seen it should know what I mean - when he begins to go blind, as a child, a similar kind of stuff is also leaking from his eyes. I know, I know, it apparently had been happening for a while for him, and of course in both eyes, (and who knows how accurate the movie was?), but the similarities seemed huge at the time, and I panicked. I didn't tell anyone what I thought until later, and I felt like a complete fool, but I swear, I believe this was some kind of a message for me. True, I was being quite foolish in my worries, but it opened my eyes. No pun intended. For that one minute of complete fear before I began to calm down, so many thoughts flashed through my mind of what would happen if I really were going blind. How would I know, I wondered, until it was done, and I began to think of how much my life would change. I thought of my family and friends, I thought of not being able to do things on my own, I thought of the Internet (of here...seriously...), I thought of nature and just the common beauties of vision, and I realized how scared I was that I might lose such a precious sense.

Please don't laugh. I just wanted to share this. There's a huge difference between going blind and getting an eye infection, but today, my mistake in recognizing this helped me to become so much more grateful for my sight. I can be a little superstitious and read too far into things, but I do believe that today was meant to help me appreciate life a little more.