At the gym, I’ve developed a habit of not putting my glasses on when I work out, and this is what the world looks like.

It’s funny to think that the last time I was at the gym, my eyesight was actually normal; and now I’ve discovered that the glasses get icky when you sweat, and it’s so much trouble wiping them off every so often.

So they stay inside my bumbag until I’m done and then I need them to do the NYTimes Connection game, which is enough time to cool down before heading home.

But this is not the only time that I deliberately choose to look at the world around me through blurred vision; I don’t use my glasses when cleaning the house, the kitchen or when I wake up at 5:15 am and stumble my way out of the bedroom to go upstairs for a cup of coffee.

It actually helps that during these moments, I don’t see things with clarity because the truth is, I don’t need to.

I don’t need to make eye contact at the gym, because I’m not there to make friends. I don’t need to see that we need to repaint the walls because that would mean doing it ourselves or paying someone $15k to do them, either of which we’re not prepared to do just yet. Same with the kitchen. And I don’t want to scroll through my phone so early in the morning to read about Palestine or another guilt trip that we’re not doing enough for climate change (sorry, it’s actually too late at this point).