little fixes

I tolerate the lamp by my bed. I bought it not long after I moved in, and it’s sat there ever since. 

It’s in a necessary place, doing the necessary task of letting me find my shoes and my retainers and my pills in the morning. But it’s brighter than I’d like; I can’t have it on when I’m in bed or I get spots in my vision and my eyes ache until I shut it off.

At some point, the lamp and I fell into strict coexistence. I accept its utility and in return never stare it in the face. Turn it on to find whatever I’ve dropped and shut it off once I’m back in bed beside it. Tolerance costs less than a replacement.

The lamp and I had lived with each other for the better part of a year before she came over for the first time.

She was going around the room, turning off the other lights one by one. I was on the side of the bed further away from it; it was the last one left on. 

“I like how warm that one is,” I said, “But it’s just a little too bright. It hurts my eyes.”

I was willing to put up with it, especially if she went back to lying between us and if it wasn’t bothering her. I’d meant it as an observation, not a hint. An offhand complaint I’d only just remembered I had and had no plans to address.

But she picked up one of my bandanas and held it to the moonlight coming in around the curtains. 

I was about to ask what she was doing when she said, “I’m stealing this- just for now.”

And she walked back across the room and draped it over the bedside lamp. 

I risked a glance and for once it didn’t hurt. I could still see the silhouettes of her and my dresser and everything else on the side of the bed closer to the door, but the spots in my vision were gone.

The lamp still had the warm glow of a campfire or a sunrise through wildfire smoke, but the thin fabric kept it dim enough for me to appreciate what I’d spent months just tolerating.

I shook my head and smiled and wondered how I never thought of that. It took minutes for her to start finding the little discomforts and the painful things I’d been just living with.