See?

I believe in the recuperative power of the human body.  I have recovered from cancer and am better than ever.  In fact, I'm so much better in that regard, that I now doubt that I ever had cancer to begin with and that the diagnosis was a ruse by my surgeon to practice his skills at organ removal, resizing and rerouting.  I have recovered from a particularly nasty bout of hepatitis and although it took almost a year to get my strength back, I consider myself better than ever.

So, I'm not blowing smoke out my ass when I say that I believe that the body has the ability to repair and refit itself, if the owner is so inclined.

That's why I'm almost certain I can regain my 20/20 eyesight.

I hate wearing glasses.  I've never owned a pair that I look good wearing.  I've never had a lens prescription that was "just" right.  They always get dirty and smeary.  And they leave those fucking semi-permanent dents on the bridge of my nose.

I was fortunate in that my eyesight didn't start to fail until I was in my 40's, but when it did go, it went fast.  I even remember the day it happened.  I was riding the train to work and looked across the aisle at a guy reading his newspaper and I couldn't read the print on the page.  It was that quick.

I went to the optometrist and was fitted for a pair of eyeglasses.  On my first day wearing them, everyone I knew looked at me funny. They didn't mean to, but you could see it on their face.  I was now a mild case physical freak.  No matter what anybody says, you can't wear a combination of wire, plastic and glass draped across your nose and look normal.

Sure, there are alternatives that I could pursue.  Contacts for instance.  Except that I can't stand having anything touch my eye, and besides, everyone I know with contacts has trouble with them and usually becomes so frustrated that they go back to wearing glasses. Lasik surgery is another option.  But if I can't stand the thought of contact lenses on my eyes, I'm sure as hell not going to have someone aim a fucking laser at them and burn them.  My neighbor had Lasik surgery and she swears by it.  The fact that street lights and car headlights now have a multi-colored halo around them when she looks their way doesn't bother her at all.  Brrrrr!

So, after a particularly unsatisfying lens prescription change a few months ago, I decided to will my eyes back to their 20/20 shipshapedness using nothing but the power of my mind.

The results have been mixed.  I think I can gauge some improvement, but I'm not sure if my eyes are getting better, or I'm just utilizing other external stimuli to compensate for my weak vision.  Another phrase for external stimuli is "guessing". 

To test myself, I watched an entire foreign film the other day, so I could see if I could follow the plot by reading the subtitles without my glasses.  I think I was pretty successful, and the small fact that the film in question was "Godzilla" had no bearing on the outcome.

Being the optimistic pessimist that I am, I'll keep trying until I'm defeated.  And then I'll just get up in the morning, put on my glasses, and find another reason to be annoyed with the day.