Every day, like many of you, I am “on the front lines” fitting and dispensing with the general public. And every day, with each encounter I am posed with a plethora of questions, and as their eye care professional I need to confidently provide solutions or answers to those questions. I always strive to provide what I consider to be my perfect curated experience for a patient. I have learned many solutions along the way through trial and error, others I have been taught through the power of example from some amazing mentors.

It’s a new morning in 2022. As the widespread fear and panic gives way to a newfound cautious optimism, America has slowly begun to poke our collective heads out of the rabbit hole, looking for signs that it’s all right to come out again. The answer, it would seem, is a resounding… kind of? As supply chain issues dominate the six o’clock news and an uncertain medical establishment tackles the realities of the Omicron variant, so too are more people vaccinated than ever, more businesses open, and more people back to work. Whither brick and mortar optical in this unpredictable sea of hesitance and hope? The answer is a resounding “somewhere.”

The end of the year is upon us, and I, for one, am excited to turn the calendar page on the year 2021. This year has been full of highs and lows, a pendulum swing of hope and optimism followed by a crash of reality that we are still not out of the clutches of a pandemic. Collectively, we’ve seen people at their best and at their most divided. Yet here we are, we are still standing. We have been weathered by the storm; we are (hopefully) emerging into a more promising 2022. We have been changed by having lived through these strange times. So, for a moment, I’d like to ask each of you reading this to take a moment and appreciate how strong you really are. Just the fact that you made it this far is an accomplishment. Yes, it counts.