Blue-eyed Blues (June 11, 2012)
It's raining, and my checkbook is essentially done for the month. Not a good sign on the first day of the second week. No one here is going to starve. All the bills will be paid. We'll even add to our savings a little like we always do. That should make me feel better, but there's just not anything extra, and today I want a little extra, maybe even for something frivolous. Just something.
It's raining, the checkbook is groaning, and I had to go to the eye doctor this morning. I finally have to get those stupid progressive lenses that the doctor's been prescribing me for six years. I've been buying and wearing readers instead, since my distance vision is great, and I only need the glasses for reading. They make my head hurt, though, just behind my ears, so I take them off all the time and I hate wearing them, except (of course) when I want to see anything that's not 10 feet or more away from me.
My eyes have been getting a lot worse in the past six months. My readers have always made me nauseous if I try to look across the room while wearing them. Walking without taking them off is a dangerous idea. I wear them around my neck because I take them off all the time. That ugly grandma-chain is the only way I can remember where I put my glasses. My pride acquiesces to the practicality of being able to read fine (or medium or large) print. You'd think I'd be past the stage of hating glasses. I'm not. I hate wearing them. I hate picking them out. I hate cleaning them. I hate paying for them. So many things I'd rather spend my money on. So many, many things ....
They dilated my eyes, which is always fun - lidocaine in your eyeballs feels so good, y'know? Then they told me I wasn't a good candidate for contacts. Perfect. My brother got Lasik surgery to make one of his eyes work for distance and one for up close. He loves it. No glasses. Lucky. My sister wears contacts to do the same thing - one eye for distance, one for up close. She loves them. No glasses. Lucky. Not me, though. Maybe I was adopted.
I know I should be thankful that I have my eyes at all - that they work for some of the stuff I do. I shouldn't complain. I should be full of gratitude for my remarkably good health in general. Instead, I cried while I drove home. How lame is that? The bank teller at the drive-through could see that something was up. I could tell by her sympathetic tone and the way she looked at me that she could see it in my face. That just made me wish I'd spent more time playing cards and developing a good poker face. I mean, who cries about having to get stupid glasses? Me.
Mostly I don't mind getting older. Remember? I'm the far-sighted one, so to speak. I'm the one with all the mature perspective and patience and understanding of the big scheme of things. Right?
The thing is, today it sucks. I don't want to spend $450 on a crap-lousy pair of glasses I don't want to wear anyway, and which I'll probably lose, because that's what I do with glasses, and why I buy cheap readers instead. I mean, for forty bucks I can scatter reading glasses hither and yon and have them at my fingertips (or around my neck) whenever I need to see whatever yon or hither have to show me. Not any more. I'm tethered. Anchored. Burdened. Trapped. Old.
I don't know if it's the rain, or my checkbook, or the seventeen urgent items I'm ignoring to write this bit, but I just want to go back to bed and pretend this day hasn't started yet. I know it will be fine. I know I'll be fine. I'll regain my perspective. I'll find joy in the beautiful blue Bachelor's Buttons in my garden. I'll bake a pie. The world will be right.
Maybe I just need a new pair of glasses.
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