No complaints, just introspection

OK, I haven't blogged in a while, and I have an hour to kill before UMD tries to beat up on UNC. Yes, by the way, I know I'm dreaming. Anyway...

Two significant things going on right now. First and foremost, Sharon and I are buying a new house. This came up only in the past week. As of about 10 days ago, we were just talking about looking at places. As of today, we have a contract down on a new house, and have received a contract on our current house. So, barring any unforseen events from the sellers, who have been a bit cranky, or our buyers, we should be good to go.

I am writing about this because, well, we're expecting this to be the house in which we raise our kids. It has four bedrooms, a big backyard, and a big rec room where we can throw children downstairs and let them yell and scream all they want. Yet we're not having kids right now, unless something unforseen happens. Our idea is to get into a house and be settled before pregnancy and kids, and house prices are pretty decent right now (well, relatively). It all makes sense, and I have no doubts that we are doing the right thing. But still, planning for kids is a humbling thought. I pretend to react badly whenever Sharon mentions kids, for the sake of entertainment, but truthfully it is still just an idea in the ether, with minimal definition. How can you react positively or negatively to such an idea when you have no real experience of it? When we spend time with our four nephews and niece, we usually leave referring to the experience as a foolproof form of birth control. Let me caveat that by saying that they're all great kids and we adore them, but five of them running around can be a bit much. Having our own will make it a different experience, but it is still something that you can't quite know until you've done it yourself.

The second current even in my life is that, coincidentally with this major purchase, I am going to have eye surgery. Now, when I started looking into the surgery, we weren't thinking about the house. But because of my impending move to an office which requires working nights, I decided that it was time to bite the bullet and rid myself of contacts. However, I am not going to be doing LASIK, as I am not a very good candidate. Instead, I will be undergoing a pretty new procedure involving an ICL, which stands for Intraocular Contact Lens. Basically, the doctor will be inserting a contact lens into my eye. The procedure is a bit more involved (don't worry, I won't go into too many details) but they don't have to burn the hell out of my corneas as they do in LASIK, and it can be removed if necessary.

I write about this in conjunction with the bit about the house, not merely because they are happening at the same time, but because this surgery brings out the same feelings of uncertainty and opportunity as does the new house. For those of you who have good vision, I don't really expect you to understand what I feel when I think about this. But when your vision is as bad as mine, you resign yourself to the fact that you will never be able to see the clock at night, will never be able to see your beach umbrella when you are swimming in the ocean, and will always have to be messing with your eyes. The thought of being able to see all the time is such a paradigm shift that it is hard to even imagine. So I move forward with this surgery with some trepidation, worrying that they won't get my prescription right, that it will damage my eyes, or that it costs money that we need right now. But though I have these small reservations, and an inability to comprehend exactly what will come next, I move forward with both of these momentous life changes with confidence that the possibility of improvement is endless. What better reason is there?