Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory

As an adolescent and young man, my optometrists always told me I would see a bit better with glasses, but I would probably be taking them on and off too often to make them worthwhile. In my mid-20s tho, I finally had to get glasses and was shocked and pleased at seeing the glory of the world so much better.

I remember the first day I wore them to the school where I taught, an older woman who worked in the library came up to where I was sitting, put her elbows on the table, and stuck her face right into mine. I gave a startled look, and she laughed "You never realized what people's complexions really looked like, did you?" No, I hadn't, but then again I hadn't known either that a tree viewed from across the street should have individual leaves and not just be a big mass of greenery.

As I've aged, I progressed to bifocals -- and immediately fell into a busy rush-hour street! -- and later to trifocals. Oh, grief! But people in olden days didn't need glasses like we do because of our reading and driving. And now I'm sure TV and computer screens make clear vision even more important. So we need to be grateful for those spectacles perched on our noses.

My eyes changed almost annually until about five years ago. But a few months ago, I began seeing less clearly, esp in my left eye, and finally went back for an eye exam. My eyeball hadn't changed enough to warrant new glasses, but he gave me the news that I have rapidly developing cataracts! You hear about them from other people but don't realize that the percentage of people who get them rises dramatically with age. They're almost inevitable. So here I am with uncorrected blurry vision and not enjoying it.

Unfortunately, cataracts need to 'mature' before they can be surgically removed. It sounds so scary to have a surgeon go into your eye and remove your opaque lens and replace it with an artificial one, but the operation is now routine. One advantage is that many people don't need to wear glasses afterwards or need less correction than before. I'll just have to wait to see what happens.

In the meantime, as I have said so many times before: Aging -- I just can't recommend it. Keep that Dorian Gray-like portrait in the attic, folks, and stay as young as you can!