Imagine the light dawning

Imagine a world where dark green is neon, and neon is a spotlight accosting your eyes. 

You live in twilight, but it doesn’t seem dark to you.  Everyone else is tripping around in your home — one of the many reasons you don’t care for visitors.

Darkness is relief. 

Darkness is peace.

Light is pain…

assaulting your eyes,  your mind…

…drilling tiny holes in your spirit

every day you have to walk out into the sunlight.

You avoid the instant headaches, sometimes going as far as to put thick tape over the light switch at work.  It’s removed the first time someone curses at the inconvenience and rips it off.

People ask, “What is it like to have weird eyes.”

You give them the answer your ophthalmologist gave you, “Go to the doctor, get your eyes dilated, and walk outside without sunglasses.”

This  generally ends with a deer-in-the-headlights look.

Want an instant migraine?  That’s easy.  If there’s someone new at the office and no one has warned them, they’ll  turn on your fluorescent lights — usually when your back is turned and you don’t expect it.  

They’re insulted when you yell, “What the hell are you thinking!  Turn the D#%$*d thing OFF!”

You’ve lost count of the number of times you’re heard someone reply,

“I was only trying to help.”

or

“Light can’t hurt you.”

or

“Have you seen a psychiatrist?” 

Actually, you’ve seen several eye doctors and you know for a fact that your brain sees light differently than other people.  You try to explain how you ended up with patches over your eyes in college from black light.

The reactions are enlightening. 

“That can’t happen.”

“Is this a joke?”

And each day…every day…you face the world wearing dark glasses from the moment you awaken until the moment you lay down to sleep.  On extra bright days, you wear fit-overs so dark that you sigh out your temporary respite from the pain.  It does nothing to relieve the weight of -11 lenses with prisms, and the additional weight of the extra protection from adding pain between your eyes. 

But that’s nothing compared to what it’s like NOT to wear them.

There was a window of time when you ventured outside at night.  The lights weren’t so harsh back then. But there was always someone who had to sing, “The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades,” a  song from the 1980’s or 90’s. 

That, or another one from the same error era:   “I wear my sunglasses at night.”

It’s like having a weird name and hearing the same tired old joke from people who think they’re being original.  (Hello, I’m Hong Tu.  *snickering is heard*  Oh, yeah…I’m hung, too).

You adapt as best you can to new norms, educate anyone who wants to listen, wear a cap with a long bill on it when you can’t avoid light, and then you find yourself faced with a brand nemesis…

this one from cyberspace…

one that began when people started looking at their web pages on cell phones.

Gradually, all the blogs you’ve loved to read start changing from darker backgrounds (like this one) to bright white screens with blue trim and grey letters.

If you want a prescription for a migraine, that’s it.

You turn down the color and brightness on your computer to 30% of normal, and every picture you want to look at reminds you of a forest on a moonless night.  

At some point you understand the truth: If every blog you look at is going to have a bright white background, you’re screwed.

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During meditation, I have felt no pain, no fear, only joy.  In those time,  I saw  heaven in a different way… not through the eyes, but everywhere, all at once, a place where time, light, color

…darkness…

had no meaning. 

There’s only one word to describe it:  Home.

In the meantime, I love, live, write and rant knowing that one day, when it’s time, I’ll be home again.

©Joelle LeGendre