All I had wanted were glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling.

But my ceiling stayed bare for ten years. Having been nearsighted –or myopic—since the age of nine, there was no point to having stars that I could not see at night, stars that simply faded into the darkness that I saw without the aid of my glasses.

In third grade, I always sat at the back of the classroom because of the sit-in-alphabetical-order rule and the sit-by-height rule. But in the middle of the year, the white words on the dark green blackboard started to blur together, and I could read them by squinting a little. Then I had to squint a lot. Until I couldn’t read it by squinting anymore. So I went to see the doctor and I got my first pair of glasses with a grade of 175 and 200 per eye. Since then, I would always request to be transferred to the front row.

From the first day I got them, I never took the glasses off except during baths and before sleeping. All aspects of my life were affected by these glasses and as I lived with my glasses for a decade, my life revolved around having these specs. 

Throughout time, my vision deteriorated even more, its grade increasing by 50 or more each year. It was later on compounded by astigmatism, the level of which steadily rose with the actual grade of each eye. As each year passed, the world continued to blur together, colors merging, lines disappearing, figures hazing. People’s faces consisted of blurry eyes, noses, and lips. Then the eyes became slits, the noses became bumps, the lips became pink protuberances with a slight contour. From slits, the eyes became lines, the noses shadows, and the lips a soft pink almost blending with the rest of the face. Until finally, faces were nothing but slight dents and protuberances on a flesh plane. Words on a blackboard used to be letters that were somewhat blurred, then jumbled together. The words became squiggles, then lines as the curves disappeared, then finally, the words faded into nothingness, sinking into the deep green of the blackboard. Things seemed to be disappearing before my very eyes as time went by.

And yet, as everything began to disappear, some new things began to emerge. I could see intricate snowflake-like patterns in the traffic lights and streetlights, lights that came to me as perfect circles. Each pattern was different, and each light was so glaring that even if I closed my eyes, I could see the spots dancing in my mind. The colors of neon billboards would all blur together, and yet I could see some sort of intricate pattern there too, and a new shade of green or blue or red would reveal itself to me. I could see the way the light from a fluorescent bulb would descend into the room, forming a slight sheen and mist that would slowly disappear as it reached the ground. Sometimes, I could even see the pixels of the TV or the computer, but most of the time, the colors on the screen would just be so smooth, it was like looking at the glossy reprint of a painting on canvas.

I would console myself with these thoughts sometimes, that I was able to see a different beauty in colors that others cannot see. My friends would stare at me bewilderedly whenever I took off my glasses and whispered, “Cool… colors…” for they could not understand just what I could see: strict shapes and forms disappearing and blending into various colors, both distinct and indistinguishable from each other, like the colors an artist has mixed together on a palette. Throughout the years, I became resigned to my condition, thinking that I would wear glasses forever.

Until laser eye surgery became a buzz word in newspapers and television. Showbiz personalities and business executives were swearing by this miracle, a procedure which allowed sixty-year-old grandmothers to thread a needle without any aid. I actually refused to read the articles on laser eye surgery because I just didn’t want to get my hopes up about a procedure I thought I would never undergo.

Things changed in May 2002. Suddenly, I found myself going to a hospital to inquire about laser eye surgery, and whether I was a candidate for it. I was 19 years old at the time, and I met the surgery’s minimum age requirement of 18 years. My eyesight had been stable for two years, and this was well above the required stable refraction of at least six months. So upon expressing the desire to put an end to a decade of wearing eyeglasses, and upon meeting the said requirements, I found myself undergoing laser eye surgery.

Immediately after the operation, I felt as though I had opened my eyes underwater. Everything was hazy, and I was told that I should sleep the minute I get home because the anesthesia would begin to wear off then. So I slept the entire afternoon and woke up in time for dinner. And the first sight that greeted me were the words on my whiteboard. Words I could read. Finally.

While there were many restrictions after the operation, these were temporary, and the after-effects faded away eventually. I could see normally after that, and many changes happened since then. I got the haircut that I could never have because they didn’t fit with my glasses. I lost the dents on the bridge of my nose. And of course, I got my glow-in-the-dark stars.

Twenty years from now, I’ll still be a normal person who’ll have trouble reading the fine print. Age will catch up with me, and along with it all the related eye problems.

But I’ll worry about that when the time comes. For now, I’d just to lie back in my bed and stare at my ceiling, thanking God everyday that I can finally see the stars.