Revelation

I wouldn’t divulge this to any but my closest friends.

It’s too funny, too ironic, too embarrassing. Puts my vanity on the table like mail from a bill collector. In the center where no one can ignore it.

Yesterday, I had a laser treatment to remove scar tissue from cataract surgery five years ago. My vision had become blurry and hazy. Both eyes were affected but the surgeon decided to zap the right eye first. It was a bit of a production but not painful in any way. Just weird. Profoundly weird. In six weeks, the left eye will get the same treatment.

Last night, getting ready for bed, I passed by the bathroom mirror. Oh my God! I thought, the procedure took a lot out of me. I look scary. My face is full of deep lines and creases, so significant they look contrived like a make-up artist worked on making my face age twenty years.

Jesus. The procedure exhausted me, I thought, drained me of all vitality. I must have gotten dehydrated, worn out, stressed by my anxiety, and this is the result. It was petrifying. For that moment.

Then, I realized. The laser treatment had fixed my eye. I could see clearly. The street signs, the car’s dashboard, my front door, my face.

For months I’ve been amazed by the incredible impact a new moisturizer was having on my face. The impact was so impressive that I ordered another jar, a bigger one, for twice as much money. It was worth it. I felt a dozen years younger and that’s how I acted. I moved into the face I saw. I acted that age, whatever that age was. But it wasn’t the moisturizer having amazing results, it was my failing vision.

All the while, people were looking at the face I saw last night. At the same time that I was amazed and delighted by the incredible impact of the new product, ready to write testimonials to the company, my friends and colleagues were seeing the same old face. Creased and ancient. That’s what they saw. But that wasn’t what I was inside.

I was rejuvenated.

Confident.

Energized.

My goal is to stay that way. Age is just a number. A face is just a face. It’s all good.