“I think there’s something wrong with her eyes.”
My mother glanced over at me, her cool blue eyes meeting my wild green, before she turned her attention back to the handsome optometrist.
“They get really dry and then she just cries. She’s not upset or anything, she just cries.”
As the oldest daughter and one of the most accident prone children that my mother would ever bear, I sat patiently in the examination room. Wild white-blonde hair stood out in wisps and my thin legs made me look what was considered borderline emaciated in the early 90s. Now we’d just call it fashionably thin.
I couldn’t have been more than seven at the time. Maybe nine if we’re really going to stretch the memory. But the visit lingers in my mind. The doctor with the funny last name peered into my eyes before asking me questions. It wasn’t long before he had his diagnosis.
“She’s forgetting to blink.” The words came out simply.
My mother stared at him. “What?”
“Caitlin is getting so wrapped up in what’s going on that she forgets to blink.”
True story. That’s what spending time in front of a screen will do to you. Having a job where I deal with media and screens makes me weary. By the time three o’clock rolls around, I’m ready to take a Louisville Slugger to the computer monitor. All the little alerts flashing on the screen have taken their toll on my mind and I just want to make.them.STOP. But it wasn’t just screens that would trigger the non-blinking (although I do remember telling myself to blink while watching Hey Dude). Books and activities would also entrance me.
As an adult, I still get spellbound from time to time. I get so caught up in the stories unfolding around me that I forget to blink. My love language is words and spending time with people. I’ll stay up until the wee hours of the morning if I’m caught up in communication and stories. Entangled by human interest. So I forget to do something as simple as recharging. Rest. Sometimes eating breakfast (is it really the most important meal of the day?).
What bewitches me now is simplicity. Raw human experience unfolding. Spending time in nature. The low murmurs of stories being whispered in the night.
What makes you forget to blink? Do you think it’s good or bad?
