Alternative title: Lasik eye surgery is more painful and also easier than I expected and I absolutely love it but I looked cute in glasses.

I got Lasik last Friday and avoided screens over the weekend as well as earlier this week in order to help with the healing process, so I had a lot of time to listen to audiobooks and do yoga and write poems (which sounds a bit random but it’s something I’ve done before). Honestly, it was some of the best downtime I’ve had in a while.

Feel free to ask if you have questions about the process (for Lasik, not for writing poems). The main takeaway is that I can’t hot tub for two weeks which is a huge bummer during wintertime in Lake Tahoe, but I realize this is practically the definition of a first world problem and will stop complaining about it immediately. Anyways, I figured I’d share the fruits of my labor and some photos of little Margaux in glasses to commemorate that period in my life, so enjoy!

The real reason I got Lasik

What if in the zombie apocalypse
Contacts get lost and glasses chip?
I'm a deadweight to the team,
"Just leave me!", I scream.
I can't see, so right here I'll sit.

An ode to glasses

Shall I wear thee on a hot summer's day?
Thou dost fall down my face, sweaty and baked.
Mine eyes need the lenses els't all is gray,
Yet this will be the fifth pair that I break.

Six years is not many. These eyes are young,
But into the side of the pool I swim,
Hitting my head before filling my lungs.
If only I could see, maybe I'd win,

Contact lenses come next when I am nine:
I can finally see among the swells!
Be it ocean or field or pool or line,
Almost two decades they've served me so well.

How can'st I give thanks for a gift so big?
With words from a poet who wears a wig.

The only time I appreciated being Four Eyes

I was not a cool third grader
I mean, no one really is,
But wearing my older brother's hand-me-down cargo shorts to field day
Was not a popular choice.
I was fast and strong for a girl,
And also for a boy.
For third-graders in general, really.
I honestly can't remember whether field day races were divided into boys and girls
It's all so long ago
Except for being made fun of for wearing boys' clothing,
That feels like yesterday
Probably because my sense of fashion still isn't the greatest.
But who cares what pants you're wearing on top of a mountain?

Anyways,
One of the field day races was a blow-up obstacle course,
One of the giant ones that's the size of a basketball court
With two parallel lanes
So two people can race at a time.
The teacher was timing us, two at a time,
And on my turn I dove through the entrance hole
But got caught up on the first obstacle
And quickly realized that with that mistake I couldn't win.
I turned around and went back out the entrance,
Claiming that my glasses fell off mid-race
And that I needed another chance,
This time without the pesky glasses.
The chance was granted and I took full advantage
Winning the race by a full second.

That might be the only time glasses have been an advantage for me,
Though it's probably the case that I broke that exact lucky pair the next week
Considering how many glasses I broke or lost before my parents gave up
And got me contact lenses.

Two decades and two new eyes later,
I have no regrets.