Clear sight and deep work.
On the discomfort and opportunity of transitions.
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A few months ago, I began noticing that I was turning my head to the left in order to focus on my screen during Zoom sessions. The nature of the work I do with people means that I am paying the closest attention to the person or people I’m sharing virtual space with. It is one of the places I am most present, where I get to practice honing my attention and listening and where I get to be with my people in the most humbling and exquisite way. It also means that I very very rarely get to turn my camera off and not be staring directly directly at the screen.
So, I noticed I was favoring one side of my face. Soon after, I also noticed that my right eye would often feel fatigued, particularly at the end of any day I’d spent a significant amount of time on Zoom. It wasn’t pain, not exactly - it was more a sense of heaviness, like my eye was working too hard. Considering I hadn’t had an eye exam since high school—and figuring professional help was a more helpful first step than letting my brain run away with fears that I was most certainly on my way toward losing an eye—I made an appointment with an optometrist friend and, turns out, I have a slight astigmatism in my right eye.
“What causes astigmatism?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s genetic.” said Kim. “You’ve had this your whole life. You’re just noticing it now because of overuse and strain. And age.”
My glasses arrived yesterday and I can actually feel my right eye relaxing. Having a clear answer for the question of what I had let bother me for months was a total relief.
Inside a season of great personal transition, as I do everything I can to stay present and see clearly, the timing of my sweet little astigmatism revealing itself is a delightfully cosmic joke.
*
I know that transitions are important periods of growth and evolution. I know that to get to the other side, I must let these periods work themselves over on me, have their way with me, as they will. I know that I must push back on the urgency, on the voice that would have me always “doing,” and instead, surrender completely.
I know all these things. And I fight them all.
I want to be here. I want to empty myself out, to be still, full of patience and calm. I am trying to be different. I am working on making choices in a new way, a way that is measured and considered, eyes open, feet on ground. This is new for me, and I am so uncomfortable.
I’m learning that if I allow it, periods of transition are a revelation:
Transitions are tricky because for how terrible they can be, they can also be maps. If I allow it, I can trace where to go. If I allow it, transitions have me see clearly, because it’s inside of transitions that everything I was ignoring, or putting off, or thought I’d “gotten over” step forward. I have to deal, you know? I have to deal with the weird coping things and the obsessive thought loops and the pendulum that swings me between total avoidance of some things, and going full barnacle on others. I am forced to discern if that’s my intuition I’m hearing, or if that odd sensation is just more magical thinking disguising itself as fact.
What helps: Time with friends.
What helps: Long, leave-my-phone-at-home walks with dog.
What helps: Fatiguing my body: muscle soreness, bones tired.
In my own stubborn, dramatic way, I am learning to trust the map.
*
If only I could show up to a friend’s office and have her walk me through a comprehensive exam that would have me come out on the other side not only with a basic prescription for a tool that would ease some tension and allow me to carry on more relaxed, but also with a cute accessory to adorn my face with.
Instead, I’m slowing down. I’m taking my own advice. I’m one foot in front of the other, and I’m resting, even though sleep is the stubbornest of all. I’m adorning myself in overwrought metaphors and the most earnest yearning. I’m embracing my humanness as much as I forgive myself for it.
I’ll see you on the other side. If I can trust anything, it is this: there is always the other side.
SELF MADE is a newsletter for 🌺late bloomers🌺 with a focus on recovery, creativity and community. It's written by me, Dani, a writer, coach, and recovery advocate in San Francisco, CA.
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