Seeing things Differently

Last week I lost my reading glasses.

Don’t feel sorry for me my dear girlfriends… this is not a new occurrence. In fact lately I would argue that I lose my reading glasses as often as I can. This is pair number five in the last three months.

Considering I only started wearing reading glasses less than a year ago, give me time and I would argue, that I could get rather good at this.

I’ve lost all kinds of reading glasses. The really pretty designer ones that cost just enough to make me feel better about getting older to the cheap drugstore 10 dollar ones my mother wears and I swore I never would.

I’ve lost black ones that I bought to make me look smarter and tortoise shell cats’ eye frames to make me look like Tom Ford is my boyfriend. Pick a colour and pick a frame and I have lost it.

On Friday I found myself at the Joe Fresh section of the Great Canadian Superstore. Reading glasses were 50% off. Jackpot. For seven dollars a pair I can now lose my glasses for almost the price of a ginger martini. If I give up cocktails all together, I may just be on to something.

I’ve tried my dear girlfriends. I’ve tried to be more responsible. I’ve bought lovely stylish chains to wear around me neck to link my glasses into. I AM a somewhat responsible person. I AM NOT A LOSER.

But give me a pair of +1.25 magnifying spectacles and I lose perspective, reason and the damn glasses.

Here’s the thing…. I’m actually short sighted. Not in life, but in vision. I am in fact, as they say, myopic.

Four years ago I had laser surgery.

Yes, I paid good hard earned shoe money to have some lovely Ophthalmologist point and shoot a laser to each of my eyes and reshape each of my corneas with photorefractive keratectomy (PRK). Two milligrams of Ativan and ten minutes later I had 20/20 vision and one hell of a buzz.

Days before the procedure, I remember Dr. V. (my Ophthalmologist) telling me about the healing process and explaining the surgery to me in great detail. I remember him giving me a variety of prescriptions for eye drops and expressly detailing for me the scheduling for the eye drops.

I also remember him telling me that eventually around age 40, I might need reading glasses.

Days after the procedure, my drops were well underway, my eyes healing and I relished my time spent on a couch with fabulous sunglasses watching cooking shows and reruns of Project Runway.

As for the warning for a future need for reading glasses…. POOF. GONE.

Now three years later… drops are long gone and I am losing reading glasses as the new Olympic sport.

According to the Vision Council of America, approximately 75% of adults use some sort of vision correction. About 64% of them wear eyeglasses, and about 11% wear contact lenses, either exclusively, or with glasses.

Over half of all women and about 42% of men wear glasses. Similarly, more women than men, 18% and 14% respectively, wear contacts. Of those who use both contacts and eyeglasses, 62% wear contact lenses more often.

Approximately 30% of the American and Canadian population is near-sighted or myopic. About 60% of the population is far-sighted; they have trouble reading or seeing things “close up” without glasses, but can focus well at a distance.

As people age, they are more likely to need vision correction for far-sightedness. About 25% of people who wear glasses to see distances will end up needing reading glasses or bifocals, as they get older.

Certain types of visual disturbances affect some races more frequently. Asian Americans, for example, are more likely to be near-sighted than Caucasians. African-Americans have the lowest incidence of near-sightedness, but are more prone to cataracts than Caucasians.

And so having lasered my eyes I thought my days of glasses would be somewhere perhaps in my distant future.

NOT SO.

Instead I’m wearing reading glasses… that is when I can find them.

Make no mistake, I love being far sighted. I love NOT wearing contacts. As a swimmer, it is a dream come true to not worry about corrective lenses in an ocean or a pool.

And yes, forty is upon me.  I can handle to wrinkles and the fact that gravity works. I can handle the grey hair and the chin hair and the new need for “age appropriate” wardrobe pieces.

Hell, I don’t mind putting on a pair of reading glasses to see the price tag on the fabulous red soles I deserve to have just so I can cushion the blow of it all.

Why? Because God is a woman with a shitty sense of sisterhood and if that how she is going to play it…. Bring it on.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to find a pair of $7 glasses in order to edit my post. Bless you my sisters… AMEN.