I’ve just been for my annual check up with the optician and bought a chocolate bar on the way home to help ease me in gently to a new stage in my life.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very fortunate in that I’ve had no real MS eye-related problems, apart from one inexplicable period when I used to wake up half blind, but thankfully it was short-lived.
Anyway, a small, dark room. Just me and the optician and my head in a strange contraption where he blew puffs of air into my eyes.
When he eventually turned the lights back on and I blinked a lot, he asked if I wore glasses.
‘Yup, they’re somewhere around, the cat used to play with them.’
‘I think you should find them.’
Well, all sorts of things went through my mind and I braced myself for bad news. I gulped hard and asked, ‘erm, why?’
He sighed. Oh dear.
‘Well, you see, you’re 41. You’re getting old.’
Gah.
I protested feebly that I wasn’t that old, but he patiently explained (possibly in a special voice reserved for the older clientele) that at my age, my eyesight would naturally deteriorate and it had already begun. Lovely.
Back at home, I eventually found the glasses in a dusty corner. After cleaning them off I gave them a test run and sat in front of the computer. Ok. So maybe I could see the screen a bit better. I looked in the mirror. Ok, so maybe I could see my pores in a little more clinical definition. Hmm. Hair up or down? Messy ponytail or severe scraped-back-semi-facelift bun? At this point, The Teenager came crashing through the door unexpectedly early (he knows no other entry mode) and sniggered when he saw me.
‘Bit early for Hallowe’en? What’s for dinner? Starving.’
‘The optician says I’m getting old so I have to wear them. So there.’
‘Like, dur, I could have told you that for free, saved you some time (more sniggers). I’m gonna faint, so hungry.’
I was about to launch into a speech about respecting elderly people but he’d scarpered.
I made a cup of tea and had a little ponder, trying to look on the bright side. My glasses might make me look more intelligent. I could look even more like an anguished writer when I haunt cafes with my battered notebook. I could own this look.
I vowed to start growing old disgracefully. But first I had to sort out the MS cog fog as I had no idea where I’d left them.