Goodbye, Glasses

Tomorrow I am having laser eye surgery to correct my severe nearsightedness. It's a huge day for me. I'm excited thinking about waking up Saturday morning being able to see. This has been a dream.

Though I'm a little nervous about a surgeon searing away my eyeball flesh — don't they say never point laser beams at your eyes?

I got glasses at age 5, I was the first kid in first grade to have them. That was a traumatic year. It was a big deal when I returned to school after several weeks in a body cast after breaking my leg. And, even as the youngest in my class I was the tallest. I dislike attention in large groups, and glasses was probably the start of it all.

When I was in fifth grade, I got hard contact lenses like my dad. Once near the end of the school day I lost a lens, and I had 30 kids on the floor searching for it. My dad eventually showed up at my classroom, lifted up my eyelid, and it had slid onto the white of my eye. High-fives from all the kids that got out of schoolwork early that day.