Well, I made it almost 47 years, before it finally happened. I had to get glasses. Not just readers, not just glasses to use at the computer, but real all-the-time glasses. I picked them up yesterday. I had picked cute frames, I had logically accepted all of the reasons that getting glasses was the right decisions, and I put them on immediately after I picked them up. When I got home, I looked in the mirror.
I hate them. When I look at myself in the mirror, I don’t look like me anymore. Hubby said I looked cute, but I still felt like I was looking at a stranger in the mirror. A stranger with more blotchy skin and deeper eye circles that I had noticed before. Another situation that reminds me that Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Note: Hubby is not entirely sympathetic since he’s needed glasses since he was a kid. I think he looks sexy in his glasses.
I tried to be a good sport about it. I thought I resembled the character from Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, so I kept looking in the mirror and saying, “Hello Sam Sparks, I’m America.” My kids thought it was funny.
It reminds me of when I got my cane. I emphatically refused having a sterile, medicinal-looking cane and wanted a cool cane. Hubby delivered. Even so, I didn’t like looking at the thing, and I certainly didn’t like using the thing. I was officially a Cane User. Mobility Impaired.
It had taken an extreme situation to force me to get the cane. I had been invited to a lovely baptismal brunch at the country club, and I was having so much trouble walking that I was unsure if I would walk over to the dessert buffet table. Important note here…I normally do serious damage to the country club’s dessert table. At Easter, friends from other tables came over to tease me about my diverse and numerous selections that I had brought back with me. When it hit me that I had debated between having the club’s chocolate mousse or staying in my seat, it hit me that I had to get a cane. I mean, chocolate mousse is a no-brainer for me. In most situations, the only issues are 1)how much I can take at one time without looking crude and 2) whether I want seconds.
Yeah, there are tons of benefits to having a cane. Having a colorful cane is a wonderful icebreaker. I got to do things that I would have never been able to do without the cane. But I still look at the thing sometimes and swear at it in my mind. So it opens tons of doors for me. I’m still a Cane User.
Now I’m a Glasses Wearer. I know, I know, there are plenty of good reasons to be wearing my glasses, and there are a number of obvious benefits. Yeah, I wasn’t haven’t headaches today, so I was able to go to work today (which I could’t do Monday). I wasn’t worn out at the end of the day today and hadn’t had any dizzy spells, which were probably because I could see better. I can read a medicine bottle or a book without hunting for a pair of readers. Then it hit me…if I’m not dizzy, and I’m not having headaches, and I’m not worn out, then how can I keep feeling sorry for myself?
For now, I guess that means wondering who that person in the mirror wearing glasses is.
