I am now typing my blog with a new set of stylish frames (that I would rather not be wearing at all) because my watch battery died. There have been things I have put off, because I do not want to deal with them, but one thing that is strangely important to me is keeping time. It is through this obsession with time that I came face to face with something I have made excuses for, my reading vision.I have great vision....for seeing things off in the distance. I think this applies to my life as well. I don't mean to get philosophical about this detail, but when I have a thought, sometimes I chase it down and then beat it to a bloody pulp. However, when you actually go to a foreign country that actually had a person who spoke English that sat me down and confirmed, at last, that I needed glasses.
I could pacify myself, and tell myself, 'just for reading', but the truth was the gray cylinder was housing lens that did very little to really help me. All of the ocular exercises I was used to doing were not helping, and all of the carrots in Korea would now do little for me, perhaps change my tone of my skin to an orange kind of hue. It wasn't helping my vision.
I honestly don't care what the label says on my glasses. It is the other label, the unseen one of my damn pride that came roaring to the surface. In seven years I will be 50 years old, and I am bitching about reading glasses. I can still turn a mean cartwheel and there are a lot of other things I am still doing...but these damn glasses anger me.
They remind me that life is fragile.
I don't need a prop to 'look' intelligent. However, these damn things aren't a prop. They are an essential tool for the scribblings I compose on a daily basis...well, that I can finally get out of my head and on to some paper now that I can see again.
It isn't easy...to let go of the gray cylinder...'the once in a while and only if no one is looking' for these new frames, now posed on the end of my nose...at the end of this rainy season. I have to admire the optician, who smiled at me as he broke the news, "You still have great vision...these are just for reading...nothing more, nothing less."
I studied this new reflection and nodded. I pulled off the frames and sighed. Damn it! I can't read the price tag! That was all the confirmation I needed.
2 comments:
I noticed two years ago that something wasn't right with my vision. I was just about to turn 40. I chalked it up to being overtired--I tend to burn the midnight oil--or used to anyway. I blew it off for 8 more months and finally had to go see what was wrong. Ugghh. I have now spent about a year and a half trying to find just the perfect frame for my new specs. OK, maybe I am not wanting to admit defeat. I blamed myself for not taking better care of my eyes--uv sunglasses, vitamins, more rest, etc. The eye surgeon told me that 40 is the magic number and most people notice changes around then. He also said that my family has history of some big ocular problems. By the end of the visit--he had rattled off a handful of problems I was having. I'm still in my cheap dollar store readers and I know I need to break out the big bucks and fork it over for the betterment of my vision. I'm stubborn--even when I know I should and I have been 27 for so many years now that I guess I'll have to actually accept that even though I feel 27, my body parts don't. Sigh. It sucks to get old.
Yes, it was a point of breaking down and having them test my eyes...smart...they used numbers instead of letters...the universal language of the world.
This actually started happening within the last 6 months...and I had figured, before I screw up my eyes...I had better see someone.
White flag flipping waived. I won't do eye surgery though...thought about it heavily...that is one thing I will not leave to chance.
They are just reading glasses...but with style..oh that made me feel better...NOT.
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