Light in Your Eyes

This morning as I stumbled into the bathroom, for some reason I was reminded of when I was little and I used to have to squint when I woke up in the middle of the night or the early morning and faced the daylight (or harsh lamplight). Of course, I still have to do that but I take more precautions. I wear these blinder things at night and just raise them slightly so it’s not so hard on the corneas when I flip the light switch in the bathroom. But back in the days when I was a kid, maybe eight or younger, I remember a sort of shocked feeling, the unpleasant surprise of not only being awakened in the night, but also the assault on the eyeballs. And it always came with a sense of confusion. Sometimes I’d be awakened by a parent waking me up at an earlier than usual hour for something. Sometimes I’d be awakened by an insistent bladder because I drank too much water before bed. Sometimes an odd noise or a buzzing mosquito would do the damage to my sleep. Whatever it was, it would drag me out of my dreams and set me up, confused, squinting, and vulnerable.

Now, if we were awakened at 5am to leave on a driving trip (every summer and sometimes on other vacations), there was a sense of excitement but for me, as the youngest and most useless, it was just a matter of pulling on some clothes then making my way down to the car to resume sleeping in the backseat of the station wagon between my two brothers. But other than that, it was usually a fairly unpleasant feeling to be awakened unexpectedly (or even expectedly) and thrust into light. And there was always a jolting sense of incongruity when my eyes didn’t wake up as quickly as the rest of my body, as if all was not right in the world.

I’m used to that incongruity now. It’s expected, ordinary, not an insult the way it was when I was a kid. It’s just part of the world as is, but I wonder how many little things like that we deal with as human beings. How many little things prick away at us from the time we’re born and erode our natural joy. Because really, toddlers are so full of joy. They have such light in their eyes, but find them 10 years later and the spark is usually drenched, gone, put out by all the things they’ve had to endure as they grew into preteens, a lot of it unnecessary.

When my granddaughter started kindergarten, they told her she couldn’t sing while she worked (obviously, it was distracting to the other kids). My granddaughter used to sing all the time when she drew, played, did her little chores, etc. So she hummed. Then they told her she couldn’t hum either. She was really upset but she learned not to do it. She is fourteen now. She actually has a lovely voice but she’s shy to sing in front of people. Now and then one can catch her humming or singing as she goes about cleaning or cooking, but not often. She used to have a sparkle in her eye and a quick laugh. She’s smart, and all A/A+ student, a lovely figure skater, but the sparkle’s not there. It wasn’t just the singing, it’s all the other stuff that comes with growing up in this stupid world. It’s shivering, and squinting, and splinters, and bee stings, but it’s also valueless rules, inconsiderate comments, purposeful bullying, and much more.

Life is hard, even the best of lives are hard. There’s a light in your eyes that goes out and there’s a light in your eyes that makes you squint.