Maybe I'll look smarter

Time marches on.

I have grown a beard for the winter again. I do this most years as some sort of nod to the season. For a few years, I dyed it and my hair white for my Christmas Eve shift at work to get in the Santa spirit. I haven't worn a beard in a few years, and unfortunately I have discovered that there is less need to dye it white these days. It is still more red than not, but there is noticeably more gray this time around.

There is still plenty of hair up top, and I could lose a year or two by shaving off the beard, but I have marked another milestone to age this week.

I need glasses.

I have managed to avoid this for 44 years, but it is time. I think I am the last to wear glasses in my extended family, so I had a pretty good run against genetics. Similarly, I won't expect much sympathy from anyone, and I am sure I will hear "It's about time" more than once.

I have struggled with night vision for a number of years, so driving at night was always a little taxing. And the last few years, staring at a computer screen for more than an hour would leave my eyes strained and tired. But the thing that tipped me over was reading. I swear that print is getting smaller in magazines in an effort to save paper, but I can't deny that things have been getting blurrier.

I went in to get my eyes checked on Thursday. When they had me fill out the patient information, one of the questions was when I had my eyes checked last. Outside of getting my driver's license (which I passed only a year ago), it has probably been since high school. I was overdue.

The verdict - I have an astigmatism in each eye in need of four levels of correction, and my up close/reading vision is needs six levels of correction. And it turns out that my distance vision is also in need of some correction. Like I said, I was overdue.

So since I have multiple problems (understatement), I would need one set of glasses for reading and another for driving, and both would probably have to manage the astigmatism somehow. Or I jump right past regular glasses and head straight for progressives.

From what Kristy and Holly have been telling me (both work in the eyewear industry), adults who have never worn glasses have the most difficult time adapting - set in our ways, prone to whining, etc. Add to that the additional challenge of needing to look through different parts of the lenses in order to see...well I am in for an adjustment.

I am both dreading it and excited to get glasses. I need them most to read, but I really interested to see what it does for my long distance vision. It doesn't feel like I have much of an issue, as I can still see individual leaves rather than trees being big green blobs, but I may not know what I am missing. I am most looking forward to getting rid of the eye fatigue.

Now I just need to settle on a set of frames. This is no small task, but I am fortunate to have a couple of professionals ready to tell me what works/looks good. More to follow...