Now, I'm one of those rare North American females who grew up wanting to be an old woman -- like 60 years old. And I decided that when I was 12, and 60 is really old when you're 12.  I decided it because I knew that when I was 60, people would take me seriously.  I'm not so sure of that now, but I was very sure of it then.   (Ah, to be 12 again. But, I digress.)  All of this is to say, I've never minded getting older.  In fact, I've welcomed it.  I have found each decade to be way more fun than the previous one.  I still believe that to be true.

But.  Today, I went to get my eyes checked.  I found, when I was reading my new-found hero, Karl Polanyi, that I couldn't really see the words as well as I could the last time I read him, just under two years ago.  And I have to read thousands of pages in the next seven weeks, so I figured I'd better get the right tools.  (See what being married to an engineer has done to me? I see glasses as tools now!)  What I had experienced was confirmed by the opthalmologist. My eyesight had deteriorated.  A lot.

First, the nice young fellow told me, I could not pass the eye test to get a driver's license without correcting my distance vision.   I was horrified.  I don't drive.  I am not at all sure that I ever intend to drive.  But somehow, knowing that I could not even learn to drive without getting bifocals was distressing.  Second, he said that he could do a lot for my close-up vision, by increasing the strength significantly. I was sure I heard "exponentially", but he assured me that he only said "significantly".  

Well, I decided that I wasn't going to add adjusting to bifocals (or whatever the new-fangled name for them is) to my list of summer projects.  So, I said I'd live without taking a driving test this summer, and make do with reading spectacles.  Then came the decision about whether to replace the lenses in the old glasses (two years old, mind you), or to get new ones.  The young fellow reminded me that my old glasses would be perfect for reading the computer monitor now.  (And you know, he's right. When I first got these glasses, I took them off at the computer.   Now I leave them on. They are perfect, but I hadn't noticed.)  So, I kept my old glasses, and bought new frames for the new reading glasses. 

The only minor satisfaction in all of this was when I told the optometrist that no, I wasn't a senior, and therefore couldn't claim a seniors' discount. (She had asked with a smile, since I'd been whining about getting older and going blind.)   But, I was entitled to a student discount, despite my advanced years!

I'm trying to adjust to the reality that I'll probably need to replace my glasses at least every two years for the foreseeable (pun intended) future, or until I go blind, whichever comes first.  And that this isn't really worse than ..   what... getting a Pap smear taken every two years?  And.. I used to have the Pap done every year, and geting older (and being monogamous) means it has to be done less often.  So maybe I can see the new glasses as a replacement for an annual internal exam.  For some reason, that doesn't seem like an entirely satisfactory trade-off.   Maybe it's cuz my private parts are still working well, and my eyes -- it appears -- are not. 

So, does all this mean that now that I'm actually facing getting older, maybe it's not so attractive as I have thought for the last three and a half decades?  I know that being taken seriously doesn't hold the same appeal it once did.   Now I'd rather be able to make friends smile and enemies quake in their boots.   But, you know, I still like being older better than I liked being younger.   And the advantage of being in the baby boom is that eyeglasses keep getting nicer and lighter and able to take more wear and tear than ever before.  It's true they're also more expensive, but (ironically) the insurance that I am required to buy as a full-time student pays for about half the cost of these new glasses. (I bet the insurers would change the clause if most students were closer to my age than to 20!)

Okay, I'll put up with deteriorating but corrected vision.   As long as I get to keep having more fun each year than the one before.  Have I got a deal?

Next entry

Archived entries