new glasses

I picked up my new glasses yesterday morning. I had waited more than a week, so I was very excited and also a bit anxious. This is my first pair of dual-vision glasses (formerly called bifocals), and I had heard that adjusting to using them can be weird. My excitement came from having a new pair of frames and also from the thought of no longer struggling to see things up close and far away without major contortions.

For over a year, I have been taking my glasses off to read or do close-up work. The dimmer the light, the worse my close-up vision is. But even in a well-lit room, it's glasses on/glasses off. The worst situations are meetings (where I take my glasses off to read my notes or write things down, and put them on to see the people with whom I am meeting) and cooking (where I take my glasses off to read the recipe, measure ingredients, chop and mix, and put them on to see where I am going in the kitchen). Sewing is awful, and simultaneously reading the newspaper and watching the news on TV is impossible. I think some days, my glasses have been on top of my head more than they are on my face.

At the glasses store, the lady fitted the new pair to my head, then showed me a magazine. I looked at it, and could read every word clearly, with the glasses on. I have a slight reading correction now, so I see better up close than I did when I was simply taking the glasses off to read. To look at things more than a foot or two from my face, I look through the top part of the glasses. They are "advanced progressives" so they're supposed to be easy to learn to use. Before I left, the lady warned me to "tilt your head down when you go up or down stairs, so you are sure of what you are seeing."

I did pretty well through my first day. The floor seemed to be rippling wildly under my feet, and I did tilt my head down for stairs. I managed to drive while wearing my new glasses, and resisted my habit of pushing the glasses off to look at things up close. I can see things very well up close now. The strangest revelation was eating lunch and supper. I had not realised that I have been eating without seeing my food very well. How lovely - a salad with eggplant, lettuce, tomatoes and feta cheese! I thought I was going to eat a green and red and white blur like yesterday!

By the end of the workday I was pretty tired, and I did experience a few moments of queasy tummy. I told myself that my brain is readjusting to the new visual input, so a bit of disorientation is normal. When I stopped by the produce store on the way home, the edges of the display case warped and swayed like two ends of a bent teeter-totter. That was kind of strange and also funny. I wonder if this is what it's like to hallucinate?

At home, nobody even noticed I had my new glasses until I left the new glasses case (with my old glasses inside) on the computer desk. I guess my new frames don't look much different from the old, and the lenses don't have bifocal lines so they look just the same. Even though I was tired, I had an easy time getting around the house. I think I do a lot of my daily routine without really looking at things, and I know where the stairs are in my house.

I think I am going to like these new glasses. I'll have to get over my old habit of switching on and off, now that it's no longer necessary. In the meantime, I can always wear the new glasses on my eyes and the old ones on top of my head - just for old times sake.

question: do you wear glasses?

mompoet - I asked the lady at the glasses store if the employees who have perfect vision wear fake glasses because they work there. She avoided answering me, even though I asked twice.