I was getting ready to settle in with a book the other night and decided to light a small candle. I wasn’t thinking about the candle or the match as I did this. I was thinking about what I was going to do next after it was lit.

I picked up the box of matches without thinking much about it –after all, I’ve lit probably thousands of matches in my life. It was a task like brushing my teeth. Something I knew how to do, did all the time, that didn’t require much conscious thought. As I struck the match, the head of it ignited and then it flew off the matchstick and toward my left eye.

This is what I did next: Flung off my glasses. Dropped (what ended up being a still lit) match onto the top of the bureau. Yelled for my husband. Ran to the bathroom sink. Started flushing my eye.

My husband told me not to panic, and then yes, much panic ensued.

It took several minutes for me to determine whether the fireball actually hit my eyeball (see: panic). Once I finally let my husband assess the injury, he determined that it looked like my eye shut just in time. My my lower eyelid was injured. My upper and lower eyelashes in the spot just above that burn were singed off. My eyeball seemed unharmed. My vision was okay,

Although I hadn’t thought much about lighting that match in the first place, I have thought of little else since then. What the heck happened? Was the match defective? How could the flaming matchhead detach from the matchstick and fly?

I’m a couple of days out from it now. It’s not pretty but it could have been so much worse.  I’ve been saying the Louise Hay inspired affirmations: “Out of this situation, only good will come” and “My body is always healing itself”. I am trying to allow my body to heal without interference and I’m happy to say that it is.

I am writing about this to let you know that this is something that you may never thought of either, but that actually can happen to you when you light a match. I think the lesson for me is to try to be more present and deliberate in my actions, especially the daily, mundane tasks that I usually take for granted.

Also, I am not allowed to use matches unsupervised for the near future (my husband’s suggestion).