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.