I have a strange and silly little fantasy I wanted to share.

I have less-than-awesome vision. I have to wear contacts or glasses.

I think it would be extraordinarily infuriating (and/or cool) to have my glasses and/or contacts taken away for a period of time when I actually have to be doing things around the house. I think about it, sometimes… How without corrective lenses, my whole world is hazy and nondescript. Nothing but what is directly in front of my face registers with its full meaning. I am very much a CAPTIVE when I can’t see.

I mean, I can get around the house fine. I don’t go walking into walls.  (Well, okay, fine, I do. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with the lack of glasses.)  But if anything requires visual discrimination, I have to get quite close to figure it out. I can’t watch TV or use my computer or drive a car. I can’t read labels or clocks or the thermostat without smushing my face up next to them.  Crisp piles of things become mushy puddles of color.

In short, I’m hobbled without being crippled.

Of course I fear the reality is I would just get a headache, get fed up, break things, trip, or be entirely useless at whatever task(s) I was set to the point where Antonio would make me put my glasses back on again.

But the fantasy version lets my mind wander… I think I like the idea because it’d be an elimination of something I take for granted and an exploitation of a weakness.

I can’t see very well, but that’s never been exploited, just corrected.  And the ability to see is typically something I either have or don’t have. And there is something comforting about the extremes. Neither is wholly desirably every second of the day, of course, but there is something safe about knowing you’re sitting pretty at one end of the spectrum.  Vision vs. blindness.  Eyes open, eyes closed.  Eyes wandering, eyes fixed on a location (by will or by force).  Eyes free, eyes covered.

I want to be forced to experience that irritatingly fuzzy middle ground, that partial sensory deprivation, and see how I function and how I feel and how much it impedes me, and just how well I can control my mounting frustration.

Famous last words, I’m sure.