Old Age Is Setting In

When I was young, I was the kid who could see the school bus coming from a mile away. When no one else could read the street sign, I would proudly announce what it was well before anyone else had a clue. I had better than 20/20 vision. Those were the days.

Those days are long gone.

I've noticed my eyesight deteriorating for a couple of years now -- the obvious consequence of sitting in front of a computer monitor for more than a few hours a day. However I had hoped I had a few more years before the damage was so bad that I really needed to get it checked out. And it happens gradually enough that you don't necessarily realize how bad it might be.

But of course, there is always that moment. Mine was the other night where I was at Ellen's place and we brought up the cable on-screen TV guide and I could barely read it. It was pathetic, the squinting and leaning forward just so I could see that there was nothing I wanted to watch anyway. Ellen spotted this and handed me her glasses. Oh. My. God. It was like a flashback to the days when I didn't need to have someone standing within a few feet before I could recognize them. Everything was clearer than I even imagined they could be again. It was a little bit of a shock.

So I think I've already reached the point where I need to do something about it. Sad, but I need to accept that. The major problem I'm having with this is this: I didn't want to get glasses until I was 30. You see, I decided over a year ago that in order to deal with hitting the big 3-0, I would simply have a "theme" for my thirties that would make the whole thing more bearable. The one I have already settled on is "sophistication". In contrast to my "roaring twenties", my sophisticated thirties would involve less drunkeness in bars and more drunkeness at lovely dinner parties, to give you an example. And part of all that would be that I would get glasses that make me look mature, intelligent and sophisticated.

I think you see my problem -- if I get the glasses 3 years early, then I feel like I need to come up with a whole new theme for my thirties, and that's just a lot of brainstorming when I'd rather be drinking.

"But wait", you say. "Why not wear contacts until you're 30 and then make the switch to glasses?" Well folks, that is a lovely idea, believe me. But I am one of those people who can't even get eye drops in his eye because I flinch so much. Most of the eye drops end up on my neck or somewhere equally useless. And this is a genetic thing. My mother will practically faint if she even has to watch someone do anything with their contacts, and my brother spent hours at an optometrists office trying to get contacts in his eyes before they gave up and said he should just stick with the glasses.

So this is my dilemma. If you have any ideas, I am desperate for them right now. DESPERATE.