Opening my eyes to reality

THE first time I realised I was blind was when I was walking home after a night out on the town.

Hayley Nissen. Photo: Mike Knott / NewsMail

OPINION:

THE first time I realised I was blind (vision-impaired, not drunk) was when I was walking home after a night out on the town (when nights out on the town were still a thing and babies were something “old” people did).

Looming in the distance were fireworks.

“Look!” I called out to my now sister-in-law.

“There’s fireworks up there.”

She looked at me like I was high on something other than love and broke my happy little bubble with the words: “Um, they’re traffic lights, dude”.

Right.

Feeling sheepish, I knew then that something wasn’t quite right with my eyesight.

Still, I wasn’t one to let something like eyesight get me down.

So I stuck my head in the sand and continued on my merry way.

However, driving at night was something I avoided at all costs

“Oh, would you look at that. It’s five o’clock. Best be on my way” was how most of my evenings ended.

The real problem was street signs.

I’d be 2m past an address before I realised that I’d overshot it.

I was so used to squinting, my face looked permanently pinched.

And I’m sure that’s why I now think I need a few shots of Botox to correct the damage that was done.

But that’s beside the point.

The absolute worst proclamation I ever made was on a trip to my family’s holiday house.

Located on the Sandy Straits and in the middle of the forestry, the holiday house is a haven from the outside world — where Navmans and clothes are not required.

So there I was one afternoon, driving down a sandy path towards our shack, when out of nowhere came a feral pig.

“ Whoa,” I cried out to my brothers in the back seat.

“There’s a feral pig on the side of the road.”

After scanning the direction I was pointing, both my brothers snorted and started laughing uncontrollably.

As I got closer to said feral pig, I realised the little oinker was nothing more than a large log.

Red-faced, I begged my brothers not to tell anyone.

But, of course, they did.

The next Monday, I booked myself an appointment with an optometrist.

The optometrist only confirmed what I already suspected: I was blind.

Well, half-blind.

My vanity had stopped me from getting tested earlier.

But the pig was the tipping point.

Perhaps that’s why I finally got rid of my rotten boyfriend at the time. The glasses opened my eyes to the reality that he was a dope and that he most likely always would be.

And that’s the moral of the story.

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