In Focus

 Last week I visited the optician's for the first time in 3 years, after the pandemic intervened to interrupt my normal pattern of biennial eye tests. I was a little concerned that having broken the spectacles that I used for driving in my fall, I was not seeing as well as I should through my back-up pair. Had the fall affected my vision long-term or was it a case of age related deterioration that's inevitably par for the course in retirement?

Gracious, it turns out that my eyes actually see distances much better now than a few years ago. Perhaps I should have realised when I jettisoned spectacle-use for watching television and for driving have preferred to wear the older glasses from a prescription many years ago, following my last eye test when I was told that my eyesight was closer to that prescription than the one two years before. The optician offered a number of explanations: it could be that my eyes are going through a cross-over period between long and short sightedness, one compensating for the other as they lose a certain amount of elasticity; alternatively maybe I'm no longer straining them day after day at a computer screen; perhaps I'm just getting plenty of sleep and they are getting the rest they need. Retirement clearly has its blessings and in theory I can see far enough and clearly enough to drive legally without prescription lenses! 

Of course, life's never quite that simple especially when there's an historic astigmatism and my nearsightedness has certainly deteriorated. So I still placed orders for spectacles but left the premises with a new found bounce.

Note to self, don't google reasons for changes in eyesight. Instead of the upbeat message I had taken from the optician, I now know that a sudden improvement in vision (mine has surely been gradual) can precede cataracts or even signal the start of diabetes. Forget eyesight, sometimes I think I've just reached a strange phase in life where I worry about every bit of my body no longer functioning as it should. Take Pilates this morning: leg circles and I start to wonder if my knee is misshapen and deformed. Or that pimple I've just discovered, could it be the start of some horrendous growth?

Somewhere, however, denial still creeps in because when I visited the opticians and was also offered a free hearing test, I declined. I've no intention of being that individual we all know who although almost deaf refuses to consider the use of hearing aids, but by the same token am not yet ready to be told that my auditory perception is decreasing. 

Disagreeable, inconsistent and even contrary; I can see now how easy it is to be considered difficult when negotiating ageing-related issues.