I was in first grade of ground school when my teacher noticed that I always squinted hard at the blackboard. It turned out I was near-sighted, probably since birth.
So I got my first pair of glasses at the age of 6 or 7, and I remember vividly my excitement that I was suddenly able to see sharply - the myopic fuzziness was part of my life until then.
Ever since, I wore glasses. My eyesight gradually worsened until I reached adolescence, and for the last 30 years I lived with approx. 5 diopters on both eyes - so I can see without glasses, but everything is very blurry.
I like my glasses. I think they are simply “part of my face”, so I never thought about getting contact lenses or even a surgery.
In the last couply of years however, presbyopia started to creep in. Yes, that can happen to myopic persons, which is really weird. I noticed that it got really hard to read small print up close with my glasses; I had to take them off or try to look beneath.
My ophthalmologist explained that this condition is expected for my age, and that it would get worse rather quickly for the next couple of years, and then remain at a certain level. So she prescibed varifocals, which would fit for probably one or two years.
This morning I noticed a scratch on one of the glasses. I am usually careful when cleaning them, but sometimes a microscopic particle hard enough to scratch the glass just slips in. I hate when that happens, even more so because the scratch is so annoying right in the center of my field of vision.
I hesitate to replace them just yet because a) the varifocals are quite expensive, and b) I’m just a few months shy of my next appointment where I’ll probably get a new prescription.
Another small issue that makes me think that 2023 just isn’t my year.