Over the years, I have heard a lot of people say that nowadays, as soon as you hit the forties, a visit to your ophthalmologist is in order, and you will have to wear glasses.
I always thought that was for others. No one in my immediate family tree wore glasses, at least not until they had hit their fifties. Not my dad or mom, nor the grandparents that I had been lucky to see. Thus, I figured that the ‘glasses as soon as you hit 40’ was a statistic of which I would play no part.
40 came and went, and a couple more years added up while I was not looking. I see now, why I was not looking. Clearly, because I already needed extra help to see better.
Things started getting just a leeetle bit hazy, and if I moved back and forth like a camera lens adjusting its focus, I found a spot that worked, and I was able to carry on with my work.
Life went on and I found that I lost my focus often. Not with life in general, or my work, or any such matters, just lost focus while reading, especially on the mobile.
Heh…but this was solved too. I grumbled about the terrible display quality, muttered about inferior phones nowadays, and took to holding the phone at arm’s length. With that, I was able to continue as if nothing was amiss, and life progressed on.
Through all this adjustment, what I did not realize was that along with the progress of life, the power of my eye was also progressing.
Finally one day, when the hubby saw me trying to use a selfie stick to adjust the distance of the phone from my eye for better readability, he put his foot down, and dragged me to the local ophthalmologist.
The eye doctor made me read a series of letters of diminishing size. I tried to be clever and learn the letters by heart so that I could rattle it off as if my eyesight was awesome. But I think the eye doctor had seen the likes of me. He kept changing the sequence of letters. I couldn’t keep up, and I couldn’t read very well.
The verdict was finally in front of my eyes. I needed glasses.
As long as the hubby said it, I was able to pooh pooh his advice. When a qualified eye doctor proves that you have power, you have no choice but to accept it.
That’s how I ended up placing an order for a pair of glasses.
The said glasses arrived on time, and I had fun on the first day. I wore it to work, and it was a big hit. The frame was trendy, and I caught some admiring glances. People even went as far as to say that it made me look intellectual. What? I didn’t look intellectual earlier? Regardless, I proceeded to gloat under all the attention.
By day 2, no one noticed. Also, I am not used to having objects sitting on my nose. See, I am very sensitive about my nose. If someone touches it, I actually need to adjust it so that it comes back to the right position. No one is allowed to touch my nose. And now suddenly, there is a whole object expecting to sit there all the time. It was too much to handle. And I didn’t. I just tossed the glasses aside.
Except, I could really not read very well from my laptop screen. So I reluctantly wore those @#$#% glasses once in a while.
Whenever someone asked me to read something in a meeting, I declared loudly that I had not brought my infrastructure. My new infrastructure became famous, and people started reminding me to bring it along to meetings.
By now, my power was hovering around +1.5.
In spite of all this, I was still in a state of denial, and wore my glasses only when I was in the right frame of mind…or eye…
I began to worry a bit when reading was a strain in spite of wearing those infernal glasses. Again, I blamed the glass makers, suspected the doctor, accused the hubby of maybe sitting on my glasses and destroying their capability, and so on. Not once did I wonder whether not wearing them regularly could be the cause for this deterioration.
I found myself back at the eye doctor’s place with hubby in tow. I had a sense of deja vu.
The doctor eyed me sternly. He knew my type — the ones that think they are forever young, that glasses are for the rest of humanity, and are in a constant state of denial. He perched his fat black rimmed glasses firmly on the bridge of this nose, and proceeded to warn me about the ill effects of not wearing glasses while reading.
What’s worse? He informed me bluntly that my power had now increased to +2.5.
Having gone through this cycle once, you would think I might have learnt my lesson. Did I?
Well, what can I say. At that point, the only thing on my mind was this song called ‘I’ve got the power’. With my power at +2.5, I suddenly felt very powerful, and I just stopped short of bursting into that song in front of the dear eye doctor.
It has been a while since that eye test. I’ve got the power is looping in my head. I still haven’t placed an order for a new set of glasses. I now do all my reading at 120% zoom.
Yup, I’ll resist glasses for as long as I can, and each time I visit the eye doctor, I’ll come back smug knowing ‘I’ve got the power’.
Anu Anniah Writes 