Getting Older, Post 2: My Eyes vs. Me, a Courtroom Drama

Getting Older, Post 2: My Eyes vs. Me, a Courtroom Drama

Growing old gracefully. What's so graceful about it, exactly? As I grew older, I had to get spectacles. Then, as I grew older still, my eyes weakened further, and the prescription had to increase, again and again. Now I use reading glasses, because my actual spectacles are broken. This is not what I signed up for.

The mirror test. Here's the thing, without any eyewear at all, standing in front of my mirror, I have no wrinkles. I have a thick mane of gray hair. I'm small in size, not petite, and I am happy with what I see. But the moment I try to read anything on my phone or laptop? Nothing. Just a blur.

So I put on my reading glasses. Now I can read every word. I can see everything, in large scale, in beautiful, crisp detail. And you know what I see in the mirror now? Me. In large scale. Every wrinkle, whats left, wisps of gray hair, front row seats, no discount.

Then I went shopping. Wearing my reading glasses, because obviously. And it's like a light switch.on, I can read the price tag perfectly. Off, long distance is a blur, and I genuinely cannot tell if a dress is my size from three feet away. A store assistant had to rescue me, gauging my size for me because I physically could not judge it myself, glasses on, glasses off, on, off. I had no choice but to trust a total stranger, whose actual job is making a sale, to decide what size I am. "I think small will fit," she said. I nodded. What else could I do? But ppy, finally a size small, but in my head " will it fit? It is one thing to take your normal clothes to a tailor for alterations, but quite another to take your underware to him too"

I have not passed on. My judgement day has not arrived. And yet, my eyes stand witness against me daily, lying to my, I am wrong , it is right, every time I try to pretend I can still see just fine without them. On, off, on, off. like Moagi, Sax on Wax off!! You know exactly what I'm talking about. I see you smiling.

The Science: Why Eyesight Changes With Age

What I'm describing has an actual medical name: presbyopia, literally "old eye" in Greek. The lens inside your eye needs to be flexible to focus on things up close. As you age, that lens gradually stiffens and loses elasticity, so it can no longer easily change shape to focus on nearby, objects. This is why almost everyone, eventually, needs reading glasses it's not bad luck or bad genes, it's a near-universal, predictable part of aging eyes, usually starting somewhere in your 40s.

And here's the part that makes it feel almost personal: presbyopia happens to nearly everyone who lives long enough, regardless of whether you had perfect vision your whole life. Even people who never needed glasses for anything else will eventually need reading glasses. Your eyes really do come for all of us, exactly on schedule.

English Corner: Eye Idioms

"In the blink of an eye" — very quickly. "The years went by in the blink of an eye."

• "Turn a blind eye" — to deliberately ignore something. "I turned a blind eye to how blurry everything was for way too long."

• "An eye for detail" — good at noticing small things. "She has a great eye for detail— with her glasses on, anyway."