It’s autumn and dark now most mornings when I wake up. The other day my husband was still sleeping when I grabbed my glasses and my slippers and crept out. It was a most unusual morning. Everywhere I looked things were tinged with this miraculous amber light – until I opened the refrigerator and realized in my desire to be considerate I’d grabbed my prescription sun glasses. It was lesson number 658 in glasses reality.
My ‘normal’ glasses have a smudgy scratch across the lens. I had them on my lap in the car and dropped them onto the tiled driveway. I was told I didn’t need to wear my new glasses when I drive which was good news except I would wear them out to the car, take them off and sit them in my lap. Hence the meeting with the driveway tiles when I got out. I’ve solved that issue now. I wear glasses when I drive. Except for at night when they make the lights from oncoming cars into blurry stars – something the optometrist said shouldn’t happen with the expensive ones. No?
You’d think the miracle of sight would make up for the hassel of glasses but all you’ve got to do is open the oven door or go to empty the dishwasher when it’s just finished and you can’t see. In the living room I’m torn between looking at TV with them off because that’s what the optometrist advised, and not being able to view the remote to change the channel. And as for shampoo and conditioner. What fool thought it’d be best to sell them in identical bottles?
But I do like the fact that I can see. I have my most recent pair of glasses (with the scratched lens) for general wear because they’re the most fashionable and my brain no longer sees the blurred bit in the middle. They’re not much good for a knitting session because you only get to look through a little bit of progessive magnifying glass and the control required to keep my head adjusted to that and fight the neck issues, is too much. I usually give in and get a pair from about 1986 which I have in the drawer (along with every other pair I’ve owned since then), and they do the job quite nicely thought I’d hate the ambo’s to think they’re my real glasses if I have an ‘event’ at home and am carted off to hospital. I’m reasonably sure that won’t happen. If I am to be carted off to hospital in an ambulance it will probably be when I’m wearing my latest progessives and I’ve misjudged the back steps. Again. In my office I use the lens from 3 times back before the latest update which are set in the frames of the ones I got 5 times before the ones I have now; and they’re excellent for the computer. And if they start to fail I have the ‘2nd pair free!’ ones that I asked them to make single strength and stronger than I need right now and are just perfect for looking at the tv sets on the back of aeroplane seats though that seems a bit pointless now.
Two things I do know. I’d rather moan about glasses than be sticking my finger in my eye with a little circle of glass balanced on the end. And as for someone holding my eyelids open while they laser the lens . . . Hand me the Lens Bright darling. I think I need a little clean.
Robyn Anderson 