Optical Illusion

It was inevitable and I knew it.  I was just seeing how long I could hold on before I succumbed.  Maybe seeing was the wrong word to use there.  Unless it was the right one.  Because I couldn't see much at all.  Only things within a 2 to 10 foot radius were clear, everything else was a blur.

I used to squint my way through the grocery store, desperate to make out oncoming familiar forms.  That looks like Hillary.  Squint.  Squint.  Ok, now that she's closer, that's totally not Hillary.  I have no idea who that woman is and now she thinks I'm going to follow her home, kill her and then sit in her living room eating her Famous Amos cookies and leaving crumbs all over her couch.  Which of course I would never do, because I don't really like cookies all that much.  But for sriracha potato chips?  Maybe.

Anyway, I've given up my desperate attempt at identification a long time ago and stick to my 2 to 10 foot field of vision and ignore the insignificant optical illusions that lie beyond that.  Except, I have passed by people like Hillary.  Marie?  Then I have to apologize.  I wasn't being a bitch ignoring you!  I just didn't see you!  I have done this many times now.  But, I can't even imagine how many times it's happened and I didn't even know it did.  I might have even lost friends over it and I don't even know it.

So I did it.  I begrudgingly went to the optometrist. Even though I knew what that bitch was gonna say. And then she did.  Have you thought about getting bifocals?  Then I told her straight up and straight from the heart…Bifocals are for 50 year olds.  I'm only 44.  Those are my thoughts on bifocals. 

She was younger than me, and wasn't yet on the cusp of two very significant life changing events,  menopause and bifocals.  I know this because she's pregnant and unbespectacled. Which also means she didn't truly get my story about driving the kids carpool at night and the stress of trying to make out what lane the oncoming headlights are in.  Because she doesn't have kids or old, deteriorating vision yet. She laughed anyway.  It was probably out of pity.

So I settled on adding distance glasses to my spectacle repertoire and switching between reading glasses and distance glasses.  Maybe I could get one of those beaded chains to hang them on my aging, deflating chest.  I think that's acceptable in your 40's.  Unless that's in your 70's.  I'm now unsure of the whole optical timeline.  But,  I'm positive I'm a dinosaur.  So I guess I'm stuck in the Mesozoic era.  And everyone knows, there were no glasses back then.  Therefore, I don't think I even really need to wear them.

So what I'm saying is,  if I walk right past you on the street without glasses on, my pseudo-bitchiness is just an optical illusion.  But, if you mention bifocals, you might expose my inner T-Rex.  In which case, I can't be held responsible for my actions.