Writing is like being able to put life into a snow globe. It takes the things that are too big and scary and reduces them into a form that I can put away when I want and look at from a distance. It also takes all that’s good in life and captures it into something I can take out when I want and look at close up and keep forever. It makes the bad things into something I can hold…and the good things into something I can hold onto. Both help so much that I need that little souvenir of life.

Saturday, September 5, 2015

Not So Rose-Colored Glasses


I’m not sure now if I was so much blessed with perfect vision as I was blessed with a mother who wouldn’t allow her children to have anything less than perfect vision. Regardless, I didn’t wear glasses until my mid-forties.

The way my self-delusion came crashing home is recounted in my story, “Dare to Enter” in the hilarious book, Your Glasses Are on Top of Your Head: Tales of Life, Longevity, and Laughter, now available.

The good news is I have developed such a smooth routine with my glasses that I no longer give them—or my aging vision—a second thought. That is, until the other day when I pulled them from their customary storage place (the unused cup holder), put them on...and they just didn’t improve my vision any. As in at all.

My doctor always asks me if I’ve experienced any sudden vision changes. I’d never given it much thought before, but now I did. What do sudden vision changes mean? I ran down the whole list—at least the list within my knowledge. Diabetes? Glaucoma? Retinal detachment? Probably a whole bunch of other horrible ones I don't even know about! My breathing grew more rapid with each one.

I’m Facebook friends with a woman who seems to have all sorts of weird medical disasters befalling her. One of them was when she experienced sudden detachment of her retinas. The way she told it, she was just hanging out and her retinas suddenly decided to depart, introducing for me the alarming possibility that body parts can just randomly flee. She always describes all of her health issues in detail, complete with pictures. It seems to me she was left in the hospital for the longest time, suspended facedown and immobile, in order to help preserve her vision.

It was so horrifying, hundreds of people “liked” it.

So I started to panic there in my car. I can’t afford a night in the hospital, let alone weeks! And dangling face-down! What would I do?! And worse—my vision was not only blurred, but dimmed! What did dimmed vision mean? I thought of movies where dying people coughed and whispered melodramatically, “It’s…it’s getting dark.” It was almost like….

Oh. I said it aloud in my car because I also talk to myself these days. Then I started laughing—something I’m afraid I also do by myself sometimes these days. Sunglasses, is what it was like. Non-prescription ones. The ones I’d accidentally put into my cupholder where the driving glasses go. So technically the glasses were on my face and everything, but they were just the wrong ones.

Who knew old age was so entertaining? Don’t forget: Your Glasses Are on Top of Your Head, edited by Brenda Elsagher. You might even find yourself randomly laughing for a long time afterward.


I learned at fifty I had joined the army of unwanted men. ~Ray Brandbury, Farewell Summer



18 comments:

  1. Tammy--The not-hilarious part is that this sort of thing has happened to almost everyone who wears glasses, We search the house frantically, check the car... our glasses are gone. Vanished. Nowhere to be found. And then we realize our glasses are on top of our head. Sometimes they're even in place--perched on the bridge of our nose--and we were clueless.

    Knowing you and your gift for writing humorous stuff, this story is pee-in-your-pants funny.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Sioux! I'm convinced that there are gangs of old people out there who break into your house with the sole purpose of stealing nothing but reading glasses.

      Delete
  2. Congratulations. I laughed at your story in the book and also at this post. I left this morning with my readers on which I use only at the computer. I imagined everything you did. What a relief to return home to find my prescription glasses next to my cell phone which I also forgot.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Linda! And your story, "On the Tip of My Tongue" in the same book is clever and witty and absolutely hilarious...not to mention so true.

      Delete
  3. Hari OM
    ...the sad thing is that not even having one of those string-em-to-the-neck cords has prevented me from experiencing similar episodes. No territory for woosy women is the menopolyxinaemia!!! (BTW, self-cackling is an addictive side-effect &*>) YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
  4. Love your list of terms, YAM! I've experienced nearly all of those at one time.

    ReplyDelete
  5. There are none so blind as we old ladies who can't find our glasses!

    Heh, heh. Hundreds of people "liking" the medical disaster.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. True. Except those of us who are wearing the wrong ones.

      Delete
  6. Every day is a new adventure. Or, as I also refer to it--oh no, what's wrong with me now?

    Pat
    Critter Alley

    ReplyDelete
  7. Very funny story, Tammy! When I left my RX glasses at a St. Charles shop and couldn't remember which one I'd been in (so of course never found them) I figured it was time for progressives ;) Congrats on another well deserved publication -- so happy for you! I'll be sure to look for the book on Amazon :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Teri! Sorry about your glasses...but maybe it's not such a disaster if you get better ones? ;)

      Delete
  8. Okay. *sigh* So this is apparently a challenge tonight. This is my third attempt to tell you that this post cracked me up, especially the FB bit. I think I was more eloquent the last two times. lol The first time around I signed myself off by mistake, and the last time I think your blog spit me out...which is in and of itself rather indicative of why I so appreciated your post, because the spitting out sensation kind of sums up my day. Thank you for the laughter, even if I had to go through hoops to tell you I appreciate it!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lisa, I so appreciate your being here at all, let alone jumping through hoops!! And unfortunately I can relate to Blogger kicking me off and messing me up. As if I don't mess up myself enough as it is.

      Delete
  9. Congratulations on having your story included in the anthology. And isn't growing old an amazing adventure? Every morning I wake up wondering what awaits me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Donna! And that's so true. All we can do is laugh at the adventure.

      Delete
  10. Congrats! No surprise that you'd be in it. You are a hilarious writer and yet a superb "serious" writer as well. You've got it all--long, short, in between, serious, funny, whatever it is...

    ReplyDelete

Any return "messages" are appreciated!