can you see me now?

The real indicator of age, for me, was always the dreaded possibility of bifocals.

not my granddad, but you get the idea ...
but he belongs to my family

My grandfather wore them and they left permanent marks on his nose.

I wanted my father to wear them (he had the steely grey hair to go with the look) because we always teased about his age.

For me?  I fought the fight with reading glasses and distance glasses ... I know I was splitting hairs, but it soothed my ego, short term.

When I finally committed the act and got bifocals, nothing was the same.  I never had my eyes in the right place .. they dug into my nose, and I stumbled no matter where I walked nor how flat the surface.

This year my eyes 'changed' enough to justify new glasses ... and though the doctor wanted the 'b' word again, the optical technician talked me into progressive lenses.

For the first time in two years, not only can I see what is around me, I am not stumbling and staggering.

Such a lovely thing to really 'see' what is going on around me!

I blame it on bifocals

I stumble when I walk. I always have.  The problem used to be problems with my inner ears which lead to poor balance.

Now I blame the problem on bifocals.

In fact, I blame most things that are wrong in my life on bifocals.

Why?

Even though the distance between the top lens and the bottom is minute, the gap is just enough for me to misread a recipe, to miss a step, to misread the speedometer in my car.

Today when I lost the little dog, the new one who is so dear and so rotten, I could easily blame the bifocals. She looked just like a wadded up pile of laundry stuck on top of the bed.

Funny thing is, I hadn't put any laundry on the bed.

By wiggling the lenses down on my nose to the right spot and squinching up my nose just right, I could easily blame her 'loss' on the glasses.

It isn't a governmental quality excuse, but I'm working on it.