(sigh)

For some years now I’ve had to wear glasses to read with.  It started out with the tiny print.  You know…the font the food companies print the ingredients lists on their product packaging with.  It got worse slowly…like a creeping fog cluttering up my vision.  One day I noticed I could not read the year mark on a dime.  Then it was the print in a newspaper.  Then it was the print in a book.  Then it was the print on maps.  Then it was the text in my computer display.  I gritted my teeth and just bought new half frames with stronger and stronger magnification factors.  I didn’t mind the half frames so much.  They were light in weight, and I could tuck them into my day pack and shirt pocket where they didn’t take up much room.  And I liked the look of them on me.  Even after a friend called me Granny Garrett when he saw me wearing a pair.  Half frames were invented by Ben Franklin, a man I greatly admire.  They’re so typical of his practical, common sense inventiveness.

I’d held out a hope that my distance vision wouldn’t be affected.  But some time ago I had to admit deep down inside that it was not to be.  I noticed myself having to work to get distant signage into focus.  Then I noticed I was doing the same thing to get the horizon into focus.  I could see it coming then.  So I did what any graphic artist would do when he notices his vision is getting worse.  I went into denial.

As long as I could reasonably make out what was there in the distance, I didn’t bother noticing that it was all getting fuzzier and fuzzier.  I just didn’t want it to be.  When the letter from the Maryland DMV to renew my driver’s license came in the mail the other day, I hoped that I could still pass the eye exam and for another couple of years at least not get the damn notice put on my license, that this driver needs to be wearing glasses to legally drive.  After all, I could still read the highway signs.  I just had to work my eyes a tad to do it.

Well…it was on the road to Memphis yesterday that I finally had to admit it.  My distance vision isn’t right anymore.  It’s not horrible by any means.  But it isn’t right.  Driving down highways that are unfamiliar, in traffic flows you are not used to, you really need to be watching the signs the moment they appear in the distance, so you can make your lane changes safely, well before the cutoff points.  When you can’t read the big green Interstate highway signs at a distance anymore, when you need them to be almost on you before the fuzziness goes away enough that you’re certain you know what they’re saying to you, you need glasses.  

Had I dealt with this more rationally I might have had some before I started heading out to Memphis.  As it was, I was able to get by using an old, old pair of spare reading glasses I’d stashed in the glove compartment.  They were so old they were useless for reading with, and I’d been meaning to toss them out.  As it turned out, luckily, that was just right for seeing the highway signs again.  But what really convinced me when I put them on and looked into the distance, wasn’t just the highway signs.

Oh…the horizon…it’s full of stuff now…

I could see it all…and yet I couldn’t.  I could see all the trees and houses in the distance, all the buildings in the far city skylines, all the elegant structures, human and natural, in the world around me.  But over the last couple years apparently, the detail in all that plenty had been fading away like the color in an old photograph.  And I didn’t know how much of it I’d already lost, until I put those old, weak, useless reading glasses on and looked out at the world beyond the highway signs.  I’d allowed my world to loose more of its richness and vitality then I’d realized, because I just didn’t want to know that my eyes were getting old, and that I was going to have to start wearing glasses all the time.

I hate it.  I used to have great eyes.  My left eye had better then normal vision in it: 20/14.  It’s still the better of the two.  But both of them need help now.

Since I was going to stay in Memphis for a while, I checked around to see if one of those quickie eye glass places could take me in, and make me a couple pair to tide me over until I got back to Baltimore.  I found a place that says they can do my exam first thing tomorrow morning, and probably have my glasses ready in an hour.  That’ll do until I can get back home.

My face is going to have a whole new look I reckon.  Oh.  And one other really irritating thing.  In the motel, I took a look at myself in the mirror with those old reading glasses I’d been using to drive down the highway with.  I’m 53 years old, and I hadn’t thought I was looking my age, until I looked at my face with a pair of glasses that allowed me to clearly see all the detail that I’d been missing, probably for the past couple years.  Damn.  Damn.  Damn.