Last week in my writing workshop, one of my “colleagues” – let’s call her Nora (that’s my nickname for ignorant people [Noro if it's a guy]) – wrote a story about a girl named Simone. Simone is what writers call a Grotesque: she’s has no social skills, she has no concept of personal hygiene, she has bad teeth, she doesn’t shave, she has a mustache, she’s into scatology**, etc. Basically, Simone encompasses everything that society deems unattractive.
In addition to the aforementioned characteristics, Nora also gave Simone a wandering eye (not wandering as in she’s constantly on the lookout for hotties. Wandering as in one eye is normal and the other points northeast). I was wary of this as soon as I read it because when a writer gives a character a wandering eye, chances are s/he isn’t going to be sympathetic about it. Most writers employ the ol’ wandering eye to play up a Grotesque character, and that’s exactly what Nora did.
So what’s the big deal, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you: I was born with a wandering eye, also known as lazy eye, cross-eyedness (I hate that term the most), squint (I don’t understand that one), and every other name my classmates could come up with. The medical term is actually strabismus. It’s a disorder that either effects eye-brain coordination and/or one or more muscles in the eye.
The form of strabismus I have is two-fold: it effects the muscles in my eye and it also effects my spatial orientation. I often have trouble judging distances as a result (no wonder I’ve been in, like, three car accidents). I’m never able to see optical illusions and such because of the strabismus. I constantly run into walls and corners, and I really have to concentrate on my balance (can you believe I was a professional dancer? Who would’ve thought?). My vision is also terrible because of the strabismus (-8.50, to be exact).
Yeah. It fucking sucks.
I was lucky that my parents cared enough and had the resources to correct my strabismus, at least cosmetically. After three botched operations (don’t ever choose Kaiser as your medical provider), I went to see Dr. Arthur Rosenbaum, the best pediatric opthamologist in the world. Because my case was so extreme, it took one surgery to straighten out the right eye and another to straighten out the left. That’s five surgeries total. I think the worst part about it is post-op when they take the stitches out of your eye . . . with no anesthesia.
Um, yeah. Did I mention that it fucking sucks?
Dr. Rosenbaum performed my last surgery when I was fifteen, and it was pretty much a success. When I’m extremely tired and/or drunk, my right eye drifts ever so slightly. No one really notices except my family and close friends, but I still get hung-up over it.
Anyway – back to Nora and her story about Simone.
Initially, I didn’t want to say anything to Nora about the “wandering eye” thing because 1.) There were bigger problems in her story, 2.) I didn’t want to sound like a crybaby, and 3.) I didn’t want my classmates to know that I’d dealt with something like that. I’ve worked hard to distance myself from . . . well, myself. The person I am now, I mean. So the thought of telling people that I was once ridiculed because of a physical deformity is sort of terrifying. They say people should accept you no matter what you’ve been through and where you’ve come from, but life doesn’t work that way. I forgot who said this, but: it’s not who you are that matters – it’s who people think you are. It sounds cynical, but I believe there’s truth in that.
In the end, I was forced to confront Nora about the representation of strabismus in her story because my writing instructor put me on the spot. I told Nora that I thought her narration was mean-spirited and that perhaps she should reword the scathing bit about the wandering eye. I looked at her with my perfectly aligned eyes and said, “Nora, you can’t just go around making fun of people with deformities. Could Simone help it that she was born with this condition? Could I or millions of other people like me help it? You wouldn’t make fun of someone with a mental disability, would you? How about a handicapped person? Do you make fun of them, too?”.
I was a little hard on Nora, and truthfully, I don’t think she meant to be malicious – I just think she’s young and unaware. Ignorant. In any case, she sent me an email today with an apology and a vow to be more sensitive toward people with strabismus and other physical deformities.
I think I’ve learned from this incident, too. I think that sometimes, sharing your secrets and the things you dislike most about yourself can help change someone else for the better. That’s the whole reason why I decided to write a memoir, so how is sharing my eye condition any different? It sounds funny, but to be honest, I hate this aspect of my past (the strabismus, that is) much more than anything I ever did in Las Vegas, which is saying a lot. I wasn’t even going to include it in my book, but I’ve since changed my mind.
I can’t go back and explain all of this to people who’ve ridiculed me in the past, but I can start now. I think that through my writing, I’ll finally be able to hang up some of my hang-ups.
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