I Can See Clearly Now
One of the chores I always try to knock out early in the New Year
is all my routine checkups.
It is easy to let those things slide. Life is like a garden – if
you let, a few days go by without pulling the weeds, pretty soon,
you are up to your armpits in weeds and you cannot find the squash.
About the only thing left to do is to bush-hog that puppy and start
all over the next year.
Last year I made an appointment to have my eyes checked, since it
had been several years since my last eye exam. My intention was to
get one of those new mono-vision contacts so that I could read without
glasses. I struggled to keep up with my glasses and on more than
one occasion came within a gnat’s hair of stapling them to
my head.
While checking my vision, the doctor said "dang, did you drive
here?" sounding glad that she had not been on the road at the
same time. Yes, why? I asked tentatively. "Well, it looks like
you've been in a fog.” That was actually true, but it had little
to do with my needing glasses. Turns out, not only did I need reading
glasses, but also I needed glasses to see things that were further
away than the hood of my truck.
She fitted me with some of those soft contact lenses and SHAZAM!
I could see things I had no idea I was missing. I could actually
read menus, the Sunday newspaper, and road signs. I’m still
a little miffed that no one mentioned the hair growing out of my
ears.
Getting older is interesting. There are a lot of things that do not
work as they did when I was younger. Besides my eyes and my sense
of smell, my hearing is not that good either. Sometimes the latter
can be a blessing, especially when I'm trying to tune out the spousal
unit. When she says, "You need to take out the garbage and change
the light on the front porch," I can honestly say, "I didn't
hear you say that." Lying to my wife is not an option, because
she can smell a lie from the next room. I stopped trying to do that
years ago, but the hearing angle works like a charm.
The thing is, stuff starts to fade away. If it happened more quickly,
you'd be alarmed and you'd get things checked sooner but it's like
a lobster in hot water. If you dump a lobster in hot water, it flails
around but if you put him in and let the water slowly come to a boil,
he never sees it coming.
I'm really not bitter about aging nor do I want to sound as if I'm
complaining, because I love my age. I feel more alive now than when
I was twenty even if my eyes aren’t what they used to be.
I really like the quote on aging by Samuel Ullman that goes like
this: Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow
old by deserting out ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give
up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.
I might have a face like a Shar Pei, but I feel like my soul is as
smooth as a baby’s belly.
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