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