Gotta Start Somewhere or The First Day

It first became an issue I couldn’t ignore around May 2001. I was walking down the hill outside my building in the Bronx in early afternoon when the Sun is at it's brightest. I had begun taking to sunglasses within the previous couple of years because the sun seemed so much brighter. I figured I was 32 and was just getting older, but that day, as I walked down the hill, I realized I had forgotten my shades and the sun appeared as if a nuclear explosion was smearing across the sky. The landscape appeared awash in tiny black insects like gnats that appeared to follow me wherever I turned my gaze. Thousands upon thousands of dots almost obliterating my view. I had to squint my eyelids as far as they would close and still be able to see to try and minimize the searing burn from the overactive light. I somehow made it down the hill, bought my butts, and traveled up the hill again, facing the light. It was excruciating. I knew I was in serious trouble.

This problem had been accelerating in magnitude over the previous couple of years and wouldn’t just go away on its own, like I had hoped. However I didn’t have any kind of medical insurance or any knowledge whatsoever about obtaining any kind of treatment. My eyesight had become so bad I stopped getting "asked back" to the freelance gigs I had due to my ever mounting fuckups that I couldn’t even see. I was becoming broke quick so out of pocket was a major impediment. It was another seven months before I finally went to see a Doctor and another nine years before I saw a competent one. In those years through to the present I have spent a lot of time in the dark, literally and metaphorically.