An Eyeful

This getting older routine makes no sense at all. Sure I can understand how the wear and tear on my body would make one part after another groan, whine, crunch or go into outright rebellion and refuse to work anymore. That makes sense. Imagine using the same car for 30 or 40 or 50 years. That’s a lot of mileage over those years.

So my knees are going, my back is a mess, my neck gets kinked and this all makes sense. But then there are my eyes. I must admit that as an accessory to my face I have always liked my big blue eyes. They are great for flirting, flashing in anger, lighting up in joy or looking sad and tearful but when it comes to their actual purpose, to see, well, they have always been rather useless. And yet all of a sudden they seem to be working better. What’s with that?

I have needed glasses since the second grade. I still remember going with my Mom to this old Victorian house to see the eye doctor. I also remember that there were a lot of cracks in the side walk for I could never look up right after I got new glasses. (Those of you with glasses will surely understand that weird feeling as you try to get adjusted to new lenses.) And every year I would need new glasses as my vision continued to get worse. As I grew older I had one of the first hard contact lenses (ouch) and then tried every new brand as it came on the market. But my eyes were simply too much for contacts what with the bad astigmatism along with near sightedness and I eventually gave up and went back to glasses.

I’ve moved a lot over the past few decades which meant seeing new eye doctors. I have to admit to a wicked sense of anticipation every time I would tell the newest eye doctor that I can’t even read the big E at the top of the chart. Really. I may not have been officially blind without my glasses but I was damn near close to it.

In my forties my vision took another plunge into new territory. Now the next step for the majority of older folks with glasses is the dreaded bifocals. The horror stories you hear about getting use to new bifocals with that near and far part of the lens. Yet I figured it was just one more hurdle to jump as you age and I would try to do it with grace and dignity. Hmm. But there was just one small problem with this theory of mine. When I next saw the eye doctor I was told to forget bifocals - I was headed straight to trifocals! I should have known my eye progression wouldn’t be normal.

I’ve had my trifocals for about eight years now and yes I eventually got use to their three levels. I was to look out of the top part for distance, the middle part for, well, middle views and the bottom part for close ups. Sometimes it can be confusing. The worst is when you are looking at something that is far away yet beneath you. So there you are looking down but if you only move your eyes then you will be looking at the part of the lens for close ups. To look down at something in the distance I learned that I need to move my head down so that I can look out of the top of the lens which is for far away viewing.

But now something very strange is happening. I first noticed it when I tried to read the very very small print on a bottle of skin cream. I tried looking using the lower part of my glasses which is for close ups but I still couldn’t read the fine print. Out of frustration I tried reading it without my glasses. To my utmost surprise I discovered that I could read that fine print without glasses! Wow. But this was just a one time happening and a few years have gone by since that occurrence. I didn’t think about it until last week.

Last week I started a book with extremely small print. I tried using the lower part of my trifocals, or moving the book farther out and using the middle and far part of the lense but I still couldn’t read the print.  And so I once again removed my glasses and I could now read the book!  Each time I picked up the book I would tried to use my glasses but every time I had to take them off and then I could read the book.  For the first time in my life I could actually do something glasses free! How exciting!

is falling apart? Wouldn’t you want your eyesight to get worse? How cruel is this? Think about it, as your body wrinkles and sags and pouches out you can now see it clearly even without your glasses!