Smudges

Her glasses always smudged, and she hated it.

Every hour of every day, a complaint rumbled between her lips as she removed the spectacles from her face, with a cloth plucked from nearby to wipe them.

It was difficult enough to focus, prioritize, and complete the tasks itching at her thoughts. The tasks in the form of blank white documents requiring text, pixel sketches demanding clean lines and color, and an online profile with the nagging voice, “you should post something today.”

She did not need the tool that aided her sight to be more weight on her shoulders; let alone a disruption of the ideas and thoughts in her head as she worked.

And when she had moments that were especially tense with the demand for efficiency and results, those glasses, without mercy, forced her awareness to shift to the smudges.

“It’s like they don’t want me to sit here and work!”

Her hands threw themselves in the air with the exclamation as she rose from her seat, her feet planted firmly on the cold, hardwood floor of her home office. The cloth was no good. The situation called for something more powerful.

But she tensed even further, with nostrils flaring and stomach coiling, upon entering the bathroom next door and seeing the empty box of cleaning wipes for the dreaded accessory. She would have to drop everything and leave the house to retrieve more.

The growl rose in her throat to a resounding grunt. “Fine!”

The heat in her veins fueled the decision to go. It was the only way to get back to work in peace. Her drive to the grocery was a sharp silence that she fumed within, but her mind swam in deafening thoughts.

I really don’t have time for this.

I have to make sure these things get done before 4:00.

After dinner, I can finally have some “me time.” I hope.

Even as she completed her errand, the thoughts stormed with echoing thunder. Her chest tightened around her heart. Her steps sounded in stomps across the cement lot toward her vehicle.

She was so lost in the raging ocean of her mind that she missed the oncoming vehicle until the last moment.

In that moment, her body stiffened with a trigger and lept back with a flail; a flail so wild the plastic bag hanging from her wrist swung and hit her face.

She knew her glasses fell off her face when she landed on her rear and felt an object crack underneath her.

And her heart sank.

The glasses. She needed them to stare at her blue-lit monitor for long hours. She needed them to focus on the fine details within the designs before her. She needed them for her work, her deadlines, her mighty aspirations. Everything she did and desired depended on them. And now they were broken as she sat on the cement; frozen while the world around her continued to spin.

The world around her continued to spin. She blinked at her surroundings.

The sun beamed from high in the sky with a warmth that embraced her like a loved one. Children laughed with their parent, holding hands and approaching their vehicle to ride home. A dog barked from nearby, and as she glanced toward the park, she saw the animal leap with a mighty spring in his step and catch a pink disc in his mouth. Once he landed, he dashed with a blissful sprint toward another human that cheered him on.

Her eyes continued to scan everything around her in awe. Her lips parted with the awareness of her breath, the beating of her heart. The sounds. The sights. The smells. Even the rough cement her palms pressed against to stand up caught her attention.

And when the next moments slowed down all around her, enveloping herself with new discoveries, did the tense, deafening thoughts release her mind. And the weight lifted from her shoulders and escaped her lungs.

She looked down at her broken spectacles, a soft, sympathetic smile cracking her lips. Then, she glanced back to view the world around her.

And for the first time, without those smudgy glasses, she could see her life.