Seeing Myself in the Shift: On Glasses, Aging, and Perspective

The font size I write my drafts in gets larger and larger as time goes by…

I have a collection of glasses: for reading, for the computer, for daily wear. I even have a pair just for chopping onions. It’s the only pair that doesn’t fog up when my eyes water. A scratched pair of readers lives in the glove compartment of the car as backup, and a cheap pair rattles around at the bottom of my handbag. I don’t get rid of older pairs because my very first pair of readers now works as backup screen glasses when I can’t find my current ones. I don’t know why I’m misplacing my glasses all the time.

The optometrist prescribed multifocal glasses to solve my panoply-of-lenses situation. I love them. They are lovely. The tortoise-shell frame sits light on my nose, doesn’t press uncomfortably behind the ears, and they’re stylish. But they don’t work for the computer! I get dizzy wearing them, squinting at letters and moving my nose across the lines, words blurring in the wake of pixelated ink.

Which is why I have a collection of glasses.

Everything is in transition. Everything changes.

I was on my way there but now I am here, and I didn’t see the fork in the road.

There are days when I pretend that there actually was a choice to go left or right—and that I took the wrong path.

That happens on the not-so-good days.

Often I am bewildered—what happened? How did I get here??Other days I am in awe—what happened? How did I get here??

I am here.
Here I am.

The view from where I am depends on the metaphorical glasses that I choose to wear. I don’t always reach for the lens that sees the silver lining in everything first. I too often reach for those super dark sunglasses—the dramatic ones, the bleak ones.

They are so heavy, though. The rose-colored glasses? Those are so light, so pretty, almost trippy.

My vision is always adjusting. And I’m always adjusting my vision.

Fine-tuning.
Recalibrating.

I’m like the eye doctor flipping through lenses to get the right one: “Do you see better with this one… or this one?”

She flips through the possibilities, the lenses clattering like an old slide carousel until I see clearly.

This one.
I can see clearly now.

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a few lovely eyeglass resources if you are looking to see clearly (at least literally):

As seen in my photo above, I’m currently wearing a pair of Made in Italy artisan glasses from my neighborhood eyeglass shop Claro

I have a few well-worn readers from Peepers

I am eyeing a pair of glasses for screen time from the French brand Izipizi

And just for fun, here’s an oldie but goodie bright song that is a good one to have in your ears on cloudy days

Lastly, the book pictured is Curate by Lynda Gardener and Ali Heath and continues to be a favorite for home décor