Pink Eye?!

“What’s wrong with your eye?!” my sister-in-law snapped at me as I walked in the room.

“Huh? No clue.” was my response.

I hadn’t noticed anything yet, but, by the next morning, I could barely peel my eye lids open. Both eye balls looked and felt like someone poured Frank’s Red Hot onto my pillow.

I made it 38 years of my life without getting pink eye. I did not make it to 38 years and one month. To be quite honest with you, I didn’t know that adults could even get pink eye.

For the rest of the week I felt like a leper. I tried to keep my distance to keep from spreading it to my wife, kids, and coworkers. But, turns out I didn’t have to worry too much about that…their disgusted expressions when seeing my gnarly eyes told me that I didn’t have to worry about anyone getting too close. 😂

Real talk, though. These pink eyes have dominated my life this week. They have hurt. They’ve made it hard to sleep, hard to wake up, and hard to look at a computer for 8 hours a day. I’ve felt awkward with clients and other human interaction. I haven’t gotten to snuggle and rough house with my boys like I normally do.

Before this week, I literally have never given pink eye a second thought. This week? It took over my life.

Just a week ago, I would have laughed if you told me that pink eye would be my most significant concern. Yet, here I was, a grown man, sidelined by something as seemingly trivial as conjunctivitis.

But then, as quick as it came, it was gone. My eyes cleared up, and life went back to normal.

You never know what’s going to take over your life.

Life is full of the unexpected. Some things are big. Some things are small. Some things are good. Some things are tough. We can’t really control things no matter how hard we try. I’m trying to learn that this is okay. It’s part of life. We can’t always be in the driver’s seat.

What we can control is how we handle the surprising ups and downs of life. We can get upset, or we can take them as they come, learn from them, and move forward. We find our strength not by controlling everything, but by adapting and finding peace in the chaos.

So, as I move forward with healthier eyes—both literally and metaphorically—I’m taking this lesson with me: I don’t know what good or bad thing tomorrow holds. I can’t change the past or really control the future. All I can do is live in the moment and keep pushing through…hopefully without my eyes feeling like hot lava!

#blogpost