I think I’m in a position to close the book on my cataract ordeal now. For this particular eye, at least. The other will be clouding up in its own time, they assure me.

But I woke this morning to the stunning realization that the vision in that much-abused left eye is crystal clear now. Good as it was even before I tore my retina, back before the cataract grew. Possibly better. Which is delightful.

Except for one small detail, a rather bizarre one.

My vision is warped.

The guy who operated on my retina told me I’d probably never get perfectly clear vision again. The retina, after all, is kind of like a mirror. Break a mirror and glue it back together, and it’ll never quite be the same.

So I was expecting my sight on that side to be a little fuzzy. But it’s not. It’s just warped.

If I look at a straight line, even the line of words in this sentence on the screen, it’s a little… wavy. Just a little.

It doesn’t really interfere with anything. In fact, it’s kind of amusing, like having my own personal funhouse wherever I go.

If I were a sniper, I suppose, it might interfere with my daily life. But I can get by just fine with a little bend in my perception. There are many people around who can testify that my view of the world has always been a little skewed.

Bottom line (it’s a crooked line, but on the bottom): my vision is clear and bright, and I’m extremely grateful to God and modern ophthalmological science. My grandmother had cataract surgery back in the 1960s, and she had to spend weeks in a bed, with sandbags holding her head immobile. Then she had to wear coke-bottle glasses the rest of her life.