To See Or Not To See

As if to remind me that I'm not a quarter as much in control as I like to think, here's one of life's funny little ironies: I need my glasses to find my glasses.

A few years ago I learned that there's no replacement for a failing memory or the chronic absent mindedness that comes with age but there is comfort in routines - always leaving my glasses in their accustomed place by the computer usually assures me that I will be able to find them. But for this morning, when for the life of me, I couldn't remember having done anything but turn off the programs and go directly to bed - and yet, no glasses. I questioned the dogs fiercely, meticulously searched the usual second hand places, scoured the kitchen and looked under the bed. No glasses. It wasn't the end of the world - I have multiple pairs, also having learned that at a certain point there's safety in numbers - but it was an annoyance that I could've done without on a Monday morning.

It isn't the life altering events that make us crazy and corrode relationships - it's the small things. An ashtray left unemptied, a towel dropped and left laying on the bathroom floor, the cap left off the toothpaste tube, not replacing a roll of toilet paper. Like tiny gnats, they pick at us and feed off the very silliness of it all but eventually, they grow and get strong and become ISSUES, like a seed caught between your teeth, they gnaw, grate, hurt, and finally are more than we can bear. Part of our very human nature, I suppose, but foolish to turn an unhung towel into a federal case, as my grandmother would have said.

Odd how we step up to the plate in the event of death or divorce, how we find unsuspected strength when we need it most, a steel resolve in the face of dire circumstances, how we will fight to the bitter end for someone we love - yet are undone by another's moment of thoughtlessness.

I found my glasses, mysteriously enough, carefully folded in the glass jar of dog treats by the back door, hidden in plain sight and exactly where I left them. Would that I was as forgiving of the flaws in others as I am of those in myself.