P52 Week 23 Out Of Focus

Ha! How I used to smirk at my parents when, in their forties, they began using reading glasses. I had no idea what it was like to see objects out of focus. I’d snicker when my mother asked me to thread her needles or when my father fumed as he searched high and low for his glasses. It was so easy to be cheeky in my youth. I so easily dismissed the aging process: I would never grow old.

In my twenties, I needed glasses to clarify distances. Not a huge refraction, but enough for it to require corrective lenses to get a drivers license, and enough to enable me to see movie screens with precision. I still remained haughty. I only needed minimal correction and I needed it just for distance – my near vision remained perfect and that was the gauge for getting old.

Ha! The pride continued in my forties – I still had good close vision. I wasn’t going to succumb to the old people’s affliction after all.

And then it began. 

In the clinic, I had to adjust my focal length just so to remove that drat sliver and I even began to use magnifying glasses for close work such as removing moles and doing biopsies.

Then came a rude awakening. When using my distance glasses, I could no longer focus on reading material and had to begin using dreaded bifocals.

From then on it was all downhill! My whole close-in world became out of focus. I could no longer see hangnails or stray whiskers that needed plucking. Even with reading glasses on, I had to constantly adjust the focal length to get close stuff in focus.

And now that I have begun to needlepoint again – I find I must have excellent light to see – even when using reading glasses. And I am humbled as I fumble to thread my needle. Apologies to my mother!

After an hour or two of stitching, my vision goes completely kitty-wonkers It’s a blurry, double imaged mess and takes several minutes to readjust.

And, for the first time, I’m needing to use glasses to see my computer screen. Mercy!

Ha! The cockiness of youth! How it comes to bite you in the butt.

And yet I must appreciate that, even though my world is out of focus, I can still see and other than the refractive errors, my vision is perfect – no cataracts, no retinal disease. I must be grateful.

Out of focus, one of the infirmities of age that I am learning to live with. Ha!