The Waiting Game

I'm
Getting new glasses
You will hardly recognize me
I'm so glad
How could I wait this
long to read clearly?
Why do I bother
When the words all look fuzzy
OooOOh, is enough enough?

I'll read the lines
Once I get corrective lenses
I'll be happy I'm looking at small print...


A few days ago I went to the eye doctor and got my first eye exam.  I had to read the little chart thing in high school for a physical, but that was almost ten years ago.  After about a year of grumpily squinting at books and feeling my eyes slide out of focus when I so much as think about a computer screen, enough was enough.  And the results were horrifying.

No longer did I possess the visual acuity of my teen years, when my eyesight was a breathtaking 20/15. It had changed.

To 20/20.

"But Brianna," my hypothetical (astoundingly attractive and intelligent) reader says, "your cleverly rewritten 'I Saw The Sign' lyrics seem to indicate that you're getting glasses."  And that reader would be right.  I'm getting reading glasses.

When walking in, I kind of figured that would be the case.  It's been getting harder and harder to read, particularly things like books, which can't be enlarged.  I've got this browser enlarged 150% right now.  If I do manage to read the words, my eyes spend the entire time sliding out of focus and it becomes a battle that is really not worth the fight.  But in my everyday, non-literary existence, I can see just fine.

I wandered into the doctor's office at 9 AM, cursing mornings and blinking through a fog of exhaustion and residual itchiness from Jude, my catbeast, having slept on my face (ah, but that is a story for another time).  I looked through an overgrown Viewmaster for a few decades, deciding whether A or B were clearer, while the doctor made noncommittal acknowledgement noises.

I'm not the only person who remembers these, right?

Eventually I got to look at a projected chart.  Yes, I could read the bottom line then.  No, not now.  The right side is clearer.  Now the left.  Still left.  And so on.  Finally, the doctor handed me a pair of glasses better suited to a steampunk novel and asked me to read a thing.

"Can you read this without the glasses?"

"...If pressed.  But I wouldn't be happy about it."  He then pushed a button and the words practically jumped out at me.

"How about now?"
"Oh my."

He nodded, wrote something down, and asked, "Do you do a lot of reading or writing?"

Glamorous and talented reader, I'm sure you're laughing as hard now as I did when in that office.  "Do I...yes.  I want to be a technical editor."

"Ah.  Well, in that case you definitely need reading glasses."

Apparently, because I do so much close work, my eyes work overtime to focus (and consequently refocus) any time I look away and then back down.  Getting reading glasses now will, hopefully, significantly reduce the strain.  

They have the technology.  They're making me better.  Faster.  Stronger.

But not for another five days.

It seems that it takes seven to ten days for the frames to come in, etc.  I swear, this is worse than the year of squinting.

But soon.  Soon, I will be able to read.  And that brings me to a small incident from today.

I went to the gas station on the way to the library, to pick up a couple of the girliest energy drinks known to (wo)man.

Take as needed for UTTER EXHAUSTION

There were boxes stacked randomly in between rows of snacks, with one employee searching through them.  I'd been waiting at the register for maybe a minute before another employee came from their store room, yet another box in his hands.  He saw me, sighed, and called to his coworker, "Hey I still can't find it."  She sighed in turn and continued her search.

The employee behind the counter approached and scanned my items.  

"How're you doing today?"
I shrugged, smiled, and yawned.  He nodded and continued the transaction, this time talking to himself.

"Today's gonna be a good day," he said.  "It's gonna be great.  It's all in the attitude."

I nodded, smiled, and left. 

Of the two classmates I was meeting at the library, one was 40 minutes late and the other completely forgot about the meeting.  Tonight I'm streamlining our powerpoint presentation and writing the script for our voiceover...provided the absent classmate sends me his material.  Our crow, Piper, keeps getting all up in my business and our collie, Aja, can't seem to leave Piper alone.  And I still don't have reading glasses.

But you know what?  Today is a good day.