There’s nothing quite a daunting as an empty computer screen, especially after nearly twenty years. I consider myself a writer. I did a bit of writing in my undergraduate college years, including music reviews for the school newspaper, and concert program notes. I wrote a 100-page thesis for my graduate degree, and promptly stopped writing. I guess you could say life got in the way, but that’s really just an excuse. It’s time to be done with excuses.

I believe passion is the key, the driving force that gets us moving in the direction we are meant to go. My life’s various passions have brought me to this point in time when I am finally ready to share my latest journey. You see, I’m strabismic and I don’t see the world like most of you. My life is mostly two-dimensional. During most of my life I didn’t think much about it. The fact that I was somewhat clumsy and bad at sports just gave me more incentive to excel in academics and music. As a young child, when I went in for my yearly eye exam, I would guess on the vision tests. It was many years before I told them I could see the music staff with one eye and the notes with the other. Then they would skip the rest of the tests, knowing I couldn’t do them. Yet, according to the opthalmologist, my vision was fine–as long as I wear glasses. I had bifocals from age 3 until I was 15 and started wearing hard contacts.

It’s been a mid-life crisis for me that in the past few years my eye turn has become more pronounced, to the point that I notice it in the mirror. Adults usually don’t say anything; they’re too polite.  But I started substitute teaching two years ago, and children are quick to notice and ask questions. So part of their elementary education now includes a little explanation about how my eyes don’t work together, but I’m doing therapy to teach them how. (My therapy has been self help for the past seventeen months, but now I’m working with a professional vision therapist.)

Since roughly one in ten people share my vision challenge, the children usually remark that someone else they know has funny eyes. And often they will also tell me that it doesn’t matter because “you’re pretty anyway.” While that may be true, the important thing for me now is to move forward in healing my sight and provide support and information for others. I’ll be posting more specifics about my vision therapy and the study that has led me to this point. Telling my story as it’s occurring is scary, but if my journey helps just one person to gain the knowledge and drive needed to heal their sight, it will be worth the sharing.