Four Eyes

I'm in this sort of in-between place when it comes to wearing glasses. I was not a glasses-wearer for many years. I got my first pair of glasses in college because I was technically farsighted, but not in a way where I worried about it much unless I was going to the movies or something like that, so I very rarely actually wore the glasses I had unless it was for The Aesthetic. I just continued to think of myself as someone who didn't need glasses… or maybe as someone who probably should wear them but just didn't bother.

A little while ago now I saw the article from Black Girl Lost Keys about Vertical Heterophoria and specifically asked an optometrist to check me out for it. I came away with a prescription that was not just for the vertical heterophoria, and new glasses that were also bifocals (because the thing where I felt like I couldn't focus my eyes up close was because I couldn't focus my eyes up close, who knew?) and had the kind of coating that also makes screens and other artificial light less terrible. Guess what, I'm in my forties, right?

So I started wearing them, and they're actually pretty great, I feel so much better when I wear them. But I don't always wear them in the house, because I forget to put them on sometimes and I don't notice that I'm not wearing them when nothing is more than twelve feet away.

Which results in days like today, where I set foot outside and I'm immediately aware that I've forgotten my glasses.

Usually when I do that it's the weekend and we're just taking Bug to a class or going to the thrift store or something, and it's not a huge deal. Today I walked outside and I realized I'd forgotten them on my in-office day.

I was already running late so I didn't have time to go back. I figured it would be annoying but do-able.

I was so wrong.

I had no idea how much I was depending on those glasses and their blue-light-and-screen blocking until I was taking my break in a dark room purely so I could relax my eyes.

Before the last two months or so, I'd been packing my glasses in their case along with my keys and stuff the night before my in-office days, to make sure they came along. I get up much earlier than normal on those days and typically I'm on autopilot until well after I've left the house. Lately I've just been putting them next to my meds on my desk since I sit down to take my meds in the morning.

It's been fine until yesterday so maybe I'm overthinking it. Or maybe I should get a second pair. It's just been so gradual that I keep mostly adapting so I haven't been able to get to the point where I put them on automatically.

But I mean… Bug puts hers on religiously and hers are just for screen headaches. Surely I can learn.