I was traveling and hadn't thought of such things, but seeing a friend's post reminded me that many people take the month of November to list things for which they are thankful. These are my first ten for this year:
Day 1 - Thankful to be able to take vacation. Technically I've had jobs that allow for it, but pre-pandemic I mostly used the time to visit family and occasionally for a fiber conference or SCA event. This was a real type of vacation, just me, off on an adventure - well, an educational program about Spies & Espionage.
Day 2 - Thankful that the Plague Mask Players allow me to participate in their shows, and that I remembered to get to the event page in time, so that I was able to be cast in Love's Labours Lost. I was given the role of Holofernes.
Day 4 - Thankful to the many who have served in the Armed Forces, as we spent part of our day attending memorials for those who gave "the last full measure of devotion." Our guides timed things so we were at the World War I ("The War to End All Wars", until another one came along) memorial at 5:00pm to hear the doughboy's daily playing of "Taps".
Day 5 - Thankful for fiber-friends I have made over the years, as I was able to spend time today with one in-person and others virtually.
Day 6 - Thankful to NASA and other space-exploring organizations, and for the many inventions that stem from their work.
Day 7 - It's Election Day, so I am thankful to be living in a country where we can vote our conscience, and privately. Also thankful to all who came before who fought for the right to vote.
Day 8 - Thankful for farmers, who grow our food.
Day 10 - Thankful for eyesight. I said on Facebook that it's something I do NOT take lightly, but I didn't want to present an essay there, so just included a song link. I was born to two very myopic (near-sighted) parents, so no surprise when at age six I first needed glasses. At the time I was not happy as no other children in my class wore them, and my mother said it was my decision to wear them or not, but she was required, as a parent, to buy them for me.
My displeasure lasted until the ride home, when my mother heard a wondering chirp from the back seat that "trees got leaves!" And ever since, that has been one of my tests to figure out if I need new lenses: Can I see the leaves? I also have astigmatism (not as bad as my brother's) which means seeing things that should be straight as slightly bent is another of our signals.
Through my life, my nearsightedness worsened, as it does, until I could no longer focus both eyes without wearing glasses. I was one-eyed to thread needles, and to read without glasses. I often had dents in the side of my nose for falling asleep reading in bed with my glasses in place. I think I was in late grammar school or middle school when I was first told that I was legally blind without corrective lenses. By the end, my correction was around 14.5-15 diopters in each eye, and there's no "20/####" comparison. I wore fairly sturdy, usually depressingly plain, and very expenses glasses.
In my 20s I developed cataracts. This is fairly normal in my family, from speaking to others, and it means we get ours removed at a comparatively early age. [Yes, not everybody is ancient when they have cataracts removed - when I expressed surprise my ophthalmologist informed me that babies can have them, so there!] While my great-grandmother had hers removed when she was in her 70s or so, by my generation we were decades younger. And I learned that nowadays, when they put in the new lenses, they can correct your nearsightedness or farsightedness - to a point. In my case, they could correct only about 12 diopters of my myopia, leaving me with a slight nearsightedness. Or they could change my vision to farsighted. (My grandfather went with one eye each direction, but his correction was much lighter than mine.) To my surgeon's surprise, I chose to be nearsighted, reasoning that I'd been such all my life and adjusting to farsightedness would be more of a challenge - plus I wanted to be able to read in bed without glasses.
So far, so good. I can buy reasonably normal-priced glasses, so for the first time in my life instead of two pairs (main and backup), I have a small wardrobe of glasses in different shapes and colours of frames. I have prescription sunglasses. I read in bed - a LOT - and generally remove my glasses to read onscreen or anything written. This occasionally means I have to track down a pair that I set down in an unaccustomed spot, but I haven't found glasses chains that work comfortably.
It also means that I donate to organizations such as Lions Club and Seva Foundation that help people to see. And I don't take for granted when I go on one of my walks, being able to see that "trees got leaves!"
