The eyes have it

It’s been exactly one month since I started wearing my fancy, old person’s glasses…the ones with supposedly three prescriptions in one handy lens. I’d say I am 94% used to them. Yes, my career was all about data and precision, why do you ask?

I was rather panicked that after sharing my early progressives woes, I learned that more than a couple friends never got used to their optic wonders and reverted back to either bifocals or Dollar Tree readers. After having invested so much time and insurance benefits in my fancy blue Legacy Lane 45 specs, the thought of ditching them entirely left me a bit cross-eyed.

I am relieved to report that overall I am quite happy with my latest rite of passage into the Middle Ages. The first week was a doozy, though.

In a jolt of inspiration, I started popping Dramamine pills for the first several days. The dizziness from the warped lenses was much improved. Yay for the medicine cabinet!

Each day, the tiny area of usefulness slowly expanded. Whereas the first day only about a dime-sized portion of each lens provided any sort of vision assistance, the second day we were up to a penny. I was up to a full quarter before the week was out. Progressive indeed!

It took a while to learn not to look at things out of the corner of my eyeglasses and expect them to be in focus. So long, sideways glances. The advice to turn my head and point my nose at whatever I want to look at remains brilliant. It wasn’t long before I was seeing quite well straight on and was managing curbs like a pro. But patterns threw me for a loop.

Around Day 5, we were in a restaurant and I had to steady myself as I approached our table. The accompanying chairs had vertical wooden slats for the back. The slats were arranged in a slight concave arc. All the lines and depth variances made my eyes feel like slot machine reels. Same thing happened while ambling across groovy, swirly carpet and while looking at a group of teenagers sitting on a floral couch circa Grandma 1986. So much dizzy.

I’m still trying to figure out how to watch TV while lying in bed. Mary, Ted, and Mr. Grant are all rendered a touch blurry while viewed through the bottom part of the lenses intended for reading. I’ve tried tsk tsking the glasses down my nose to view the WJM gang through the top, distance part but that has given me a headache. So for now I’m propping myself up with lots of pillows for my bedtime brain candy.

All of these adjustments, though, are totally and completely outweighed by one fundamental improvement: I can read without taking off my glasses!!! These new frames have not been perched on my head one single time!

It is rather revolutionary to have two magnifying glasses on my face now. It is so dang convenient! Need to read a menu? Need to reply to a text? Need to file a fingernail? Need to use a seam ripper to remove a scratchy tag? I just need to tilt my head ever so slightly and voila! Vision! All super easy mcsqueezy now with my Medicare-approved spectacles.

So despite the occasional moment of wavy dizziness or the blur of accidentally looking through the wrong part of the lens, I am quite excited by this pair of magical monocles. I honestly wish I had gotten them a few years ago. With age comes wisdom. And eventually, fancy glasses.