Evening Two ~ Discovery

Found this heart wrenching post. Though it is not reflective of my own experience (this man still has vision in both eyes and thus experiences double-vision and other visual problems), there were some resonating points for me. Particularly, "Who will love the boy and the man with the turned eye that I have to carry around inside of me? And by surgically altering my appearance will I actually be rejecting him?"

"...will I actually be rejecting him?" That is powerful and well-put. I share this thought, this struggle. Am I simply caving to vanity and rejecting what fate or God or karma handed me? Was there a lesson I missed and now will swipe under the rug with a couple of snips and sutures?

It remains an often unspoken but simple truth of human nature. We are our physical selves. Not entirely of course. I don't pretend to think it is as simple as that. Yet I dare you to deny its power. I mean in the sense that we are judged, categorized, trapped by, and become internally shaped by our shell. I cannot tell you how many times I have been asked about my eye within the first hour of meeting someone, or how often I've been told later that someone had joked about it, commented on it, found me unattractive (or conversely, attractive because of the in-turn), overlooked my capabilities, or made assumptions about my intelligence upon meeting me.

I forget about it. I honestly do. I don't really even see it when I look in the mirror. So it is always a freshly shocking, and sickening moment when I realize how prevalent it is in the minds of others and how it shapes their first and sometimes lasting impressions of me.

I've never consiously let it get in the way of anything I've wanted. I am lucky to be me, to have defied what has been utterly devastating to others, and to have an "I'll be damned if that's going to get in my way" attitude about getting what I want. On the other hand, having to always break down barriers and prove that I am much more than my physicality can make a person harder than necessary. Two summers ago, I was instructed to allow myself to be vulnerable and to let go of leading with an edge.

Funny. Up to that moment, I thought I was pretty damned vulnerable. But he was right.