Eyelashes

When's the last time you thought about eyelashes?

Sometimes when I brush my teeth, I lean close to the mirror and look into my eyes, trying to figure out the color wheel of my iris. While doing so tonight, something different caught my focus. My eyelashes. As I took a glance at these little hairs growing from my eyelid, a thought occurred to me - When was the last time eyelashes even crossed my mind?

Oddly enough, eyelashes, which fall only millimeters away from the eyes we make contact with each and every day, are easily overlooked. They serve a noble purpose, providing protection for our invaluable optics, but they never really grab my attention until a pretty girl bats her eyes or a mascara commercial comes on. Oh, and of course, whenever a rogue lash goes kamikaze and dive bombs into my cornea.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is this - Eyelashes are very important, and we certainly wouldn't know how to act without them. Yet, there are plenty of days that go by where I don't even knowingly appreciate their existence. And if you've figured out that this blog is about more than just the pretty hairs growing from our eyelids, then you're spot on.

This afternoon, email access went down on campus. I had several conversations with stressed out individuals who were struggling to function without the ability to communicate on a day without Gmail. It was chaos. I can't remember the last time I stopped and said "Man, email sure is the cat's pajamas",  but I can tell you life (as we know it) sure does turn ugly fast without it.

Likewise, I can tell you I haven't thought about how much I value clean water today, but I would be in complete dismay if I woke up tomorrow without it.

Kinda makes me wonder what other eyelashes we have in our lives. Colors? Bees? Grandparents? Freedom? The list can get pretty long pretty fast.

Life is full of so many elements that don't demand our attention, yet make our existence beautiful. And while life may seem long, it moves by very quickly if we don't stop and smell the flowers (or look at the eyelashes) every once in a while. So today, let's raise our glasses to the eyelashes of the world, those things that deserve our appreciation, yet at times don't seem to fully capture it. Here's to the little things that make us who we are.