My arm is not long enough anymore! I cannot see without reading glasses. You know, those things that we laughed about that our mothers, older brothers and simply others had to use to see. And, now it is our turn. Oh, my, there go our eyes!
A lot of us have reached that interesting place where we now have “old eyes” or presbyopia. This wonderful word (coming to us from the Greeks) is defined as, “A visual condition which becomes apparent, especially in middle age, and in which loss of elasticity of the lens of the eye causes defective accommodation and inability to focus sharply for near vision.” Translate this to, “I can’t see jack anymore.”
But, you know, there is rather a sense of oneness, a sort of “community of friends” as we “persons of age” now go about our days “winkin’, blinkin’ and noddin’ ” at one another. There is a “we are all in this together” feeling as most of us can no longer see without the assistance of a “reading device.” And what a hoot we owl-eyed forty-one, fifty-two and sixty-something year olds present to one other!
Have you noticed that you will hardly lift a brow or emit a snort when a friend (or sometimes just a casual acquaintance) blithely reaches over to remove the specs from your nose and places them over theirs to aid their blind-as-a-bat attempt to decipher the black parts on a page?
I remember that very first pair of reading glasses I decided to buy. I went to one of those national eyeglass chains and spent lots of time carefully choosing the frames (designer, of course!) and the lenses (transforming to sunglasses, don’t ya know!) and dropped lots of dough as well.
Once fitted elegantly to my beak, the eyeglass “engineer” asked if I would like an eyeglass “holding device,” a neck chain to keep my glasses in easy reach. “Oh dear, no!” I replied, appalled at the mere idea. “This very cool designer-frame eyeglass case will do just swell.”
This I would open and close carefully as I put on and took off my new “fashion frames,” a lot more than once, twice or thrice throughout my day. Then I forgot to be so very careful and I sat on the frames; or I lost them, I cannot remember which. Whatever! The point is that I could no longer see.
Now, you can find those cheapo +150 or +200 black, purple, or not-sure-what-color reading glasses all over my life; in every drawer, next to the computer and the TV, and on my bedside table. Because, I still (thank you very much!) refuse to wear that eyeglass “holding device,” no matter how helpful, handy or practical.
But, this is all to the economic good of the country. Why? Because dollar stores and dime stores and drug stores have all realized the booming business to be found in our blind and befuddled refusal to wear that “chain thing” that would keep our now-needed glasses close to our chests and easy to hand.
Tags: Age and change, Aging advice, Aging humor, robin korth
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 1st, 2010 at 10:45 am and is filed under IOA Stories, Newsletter, Robin's Insights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
