On getting new eyes
I’d known for a while that I owed myself a visit to the Optician.
I knew it, my friends knew it, and strangers who saw me walk around with one eye shut in the evenings, or hold my phone as though I was about to take a photo of them, probably guessed it.
But if you think I didn’t dilly-dally around, and procrastinate till I couldn’t anymore, then you really don’t know me.
I always could see well. Far things, at least, so I assumed I was fine.
For a while, I’d wear sun-shades while working on my computer, so it wouldn’t hurt my eyes, and I’d fail miserably at it.
It took going with my brother, who needed the test a lot more than I did, to finally get my eyes checked.
The Doctor insisted.
Turns out I have Computer Vision Syndrome, and farsightedness. The former, as a result of staring at screens for long hours, and the latter, just an anomaly any regular Joe can have.
I picked up the perfect lens this morning. It’s got some anti-glare on it, so my eyes don’t hurt when I look at a screen anymore. Or I don’t know yet, cos I’ve only been looking at one for a few hours.
I’d fiddled with wearing shako-mended glasses, and imagined myself as a scholar, looking down on young-lings through thick lens like Minerva McGonagall.
Now, it’s real, and I couldn’t be more proud of my eyes for holding out this long against the inevitable.
I say inevitable cos I was that kid you had to pry away from the front of the television set, and I’ve loved and used computers for a long time. I wonder if NEPA (or lack of it) played a responsibility in how long this took.
If you find your eyes hurting when you look at light, after looking at screens all day, or find yourself holding notes close to your face to read text, then you probably should get your eyes checked.
Try not to delay for too long, however. You’ll be needing those eyes for a long, long time. Keep them in good shape for a long as you can.
