Buddism and paranoia

So today on the way driving my brother from St. Paul over to here in the morning sun there was an "incident." I don't mean a family drama incident, but an incident that caused me to seriously get worried about my health, and this is rare.

On 35 south right about the time where you exit on Diamond Lake Road, I started having this weird flickery thing in my left eye, kind of like I was seeing a prism reflected on the windshield, but it went everywhere I looked. I squinted and squinted, trying to see if this was something reflecting on the glass or if it was just me, but I couldn't tell. The sun was seriously so bright I was having a hard time seeing anything through the windshield anyway. But soon this glare-effect was still happening after I turned west and was away from the sun. I closed my eyes and it was still happening, in my closed eyes. It was like a weird, oscillating circle that just kept going around and around. When I finally got to our alley and parked, I closed my eyes again and it was still happening, in a major way. It was very alarming. I could not make it stop and I started to get paranoid. Of course the main things I associate flickering in the eyes with are migraines, high blood pressure, and BRAIN TUMORS. Super.


I got in the house and changed Beebins' poopy diaper and the whole time this continued. I looked in the mirror and everything "looked" fine but the reaction continued. The only thing I could think of was to get out a pair of sunglasses and put them on, which I did. This made it stop.

Later, after I got over my weird shocked feeling about this whole thing happening, I called my mother and asked her about her eye condition (ptyerigiam?) where, from sun damage, the eye gets a weird, clear coating over it that is sensitive to light and wind. I asked her if this sort of thing ever happened to her and she said, YES, VERY COMMON.

I guess it's high time I started wearing sunglasses. I HATE them, so this will be difficult.

Buddism, you ask? Well, here's how it relates:

In a really excellent novel TOUCHING PEACE, a Vietnamese monk named Thihn naht Hahn tries to explain how we should all be thankful for each day we have, each day we are alive and well. Some days when we have a headache or toothache, it's all we can focus on, and we curse each moment we're in pain. He says we should learn to appreciate the seemingly random, normal days where we DON"T have pain, and to be thankful for them. In meditation, we breathe in and out and smile to our healthy organs. Breathing in and out we realize we don't have a toothache and we smile at our non-toothache. I love it. I love it that there are others out there who try to be positive (he really is probably the greatest person at this ever, and I am just a petty, oft-complaining hag, but it's good to have a role model, I guess, despite my flaws and dissimilarities).

Once this ridiculous flashing in my eye went away I smiled to my non-flashing eye.