When I was younger, I wanted to wear glasses. I thought they made me look smart or studious. I actually would steal my mom’s reading glasses because I wanted glasses so much. I loved how they would make everything bigger. They didn’t necessarily help me see clearer, but they did make everything bigger.
Now I am in my 40s and glasses are a part of my every day life. I am working on strengthening my eyesight, but when I am tired or it is dark, it is so much easier to see with that little crutch.
I grew up fairly protected. We weren’t allowed to watch PG-13 or R rated shows. Heck, when I was under 13, we weren’t even allowed to watch PG rated movies. My mom was very picky about the shows we would watch. We were sheltered from the bad language, the violence and the reality of the world.
And… I was really good about following directions back then. My Junior year in high school, we had a choir party. (I was part of the madrigal group called Pizzaz.) It was toward the end of the year, and this was my chance to fit in… I never did do that well. So, I went to the party. They were watching Robocop 2. It was R rated. I wasn’t supposed to watch R rated movies. So, what did I do? I did the dishes and cleaned up the party. Missing out on the movie and that “bonding time” with my classmates.
I liked that I was different. I liked that I was pure. It was important to me.
And I grew up. And I started to experience life. It didn’t take long for me to realize that life wasn’t all lollipops and rainbows. My handsome prince was not always in his shining armor. In fact, he dropped that costume about 2 months into our marriage.
Everything I thought I was getting was gone. All of my hopes and dreams had vanished. From the way I had been brought up, I was damned. My husband was not a worthy person and I was doomed for all of eternity to be with someone who couldn’t be with me.
I grew up that doing certain things made you bad. And my new husband did all of those things. He watched the bad movies. He smoked. He drank. He swore. He went to the strip clubs. He refused to go to church and he wanted nothing to do with the scriptures. God was pretty much dead to him. How could I love this man who did everything God didn’t love? How could I stay?
But this shift changed the way I looked at everything. It completely changed my lens of the world. I learned that it isn’t the actions. It isn’t the things that are done, per se, that make for the core of the person. Those superficial things may have been choices I wouldn’t make, and some of them, I still don’t make. However, some of them I do. And that’s okay.
My ex taught me many things about life. The first lesson he taught me was that you don’t have to be perfect to be loved. He taught me what unconditional love could start to look like. And that love has evolved over time.
The most important lesson I have learned though, is that changing the lens can save your life.