For some years now I’ve had a front row seat to my own inevitable demise. It isn’t exactly an exciting show. (If it were, I probably wouldn’t be able to write this.) Often the show hangs on one grey hair winding its way into my chestnut mane at the leisurely rate of 1.5 cm per month.
This past week, however, things picked up just a bit. Having forestalled the necessary visit to the optometrist for several months, I finally dropped in for an eye exam. “Everything looks fine in there,” the doctor reported. (Immediate relief: no tumors!) “However, your eyes have declined noticeably in the last three years. You’re going to need … reading glasses.” (It turns out that my clinical diagnosis is “Presbyopia“.)
Reading glasses? I must have looked like I’d received a jab in the ribs from Floyd Mayweather because the optometrist added quickly: “Most people in their forties need reading glasses.”
Yeah, and most people on death row are going to face the chair. It doesn’t make it any easier when your number comes up.
As I took my prescription and went to select a couple new pairs of glasses, I mused that my extra pair of glasses used to be sunglasses. Now that symbol of youth had been replaced by that preeminent symbol of middle age.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so shocked. After all, I’ve been wearing slippers around the house for a couple years.
