Bookish Problems: Small Print, Older Eyes

I don’t mind getting older. Granted, it hurt my vanity to start seeing glints of silvery strands in my hair when the light shined on my hair just so… as did seeing those faint lines around my eyes (and others) deepen into something that could no longer be hidden. But that’s a natural part of aging, so I don’t let it bother me, most of the time. The one thing about getting older that I do mind, however, is how it’s affected my eyesight.

I’ve been near-sighted since I was nine years old, and I no longer remember what it was like to see clearly without having to wear glasses. I remember one day, a few months after I’d gotten my first pair of glasses, I took my glasses off and lay them on the floor next to me while my mother brushed my hair. She asked me to move over a bit so she could get my ponytail straight, so I popped up and back down again in a hurry, and was horrified to realize I’d sat on my glasses.

I jumped up and immediately burst into tears when I saw both earpieces, still attached, now pointed straight down. I picked them up, dropped them on my mother’s lap, and ran to my bedroom and flung myself face-down onto the bed, and cried my heart out. I didn’t cry because I was afraid of getting into a lot of trouble for what I’d carelessly done. I was sobbing in sheer terror, because I was convinced that there was no way to repair them. I knew my eyesight was very poor, and that I needed my glasses to be able to see properly. But now they were broken, and I couldn’t wear them—and I was absolutely convinced that I was going to go blind. And if I was blind, I would never be able to read another book!!

Of course, that didn’t happen. I was in no danger of going blind, my glasses were repaired, and I’ve likely read thousands of books in the thirty plus years since then. What did happen that day was I learned a frightening lesson about why I should be careful about where I put my glasses, and to be grateful for them.

But no one ever warned me that a day would come when, even with my glasses, reading a “real” book would become a challenge. My near vision has worsened in the last few months (either from my medication, getting older, or both), and I’m unable to read the average-sized print in books, magazines, etc. with my glasses on. All I can see is a blur. If the print isn’t too small, sometimes I can hold the book away from me a bit further and be able to read it, but it’s still a strain on my eyes and after a while the print begins to blur again. I can hold it as I normally would and read IF I take my glasses off, but that’s even harder on my eyes. Either way I go about it, I can only read so long before my eyes begin to tire and a headache starts, so there’s no good way to work around the issue. (Other than getting new glasses, of course, but that will have to wait a bit until I can work the extra expense into my budget.)

What bothers me the most about this whole mess is it’s slowed my reading down a lot. At the moment, I’m reading The Midnight Watch by David Dyer, a book I won in a Goodreads Giveaway. It only has 319 pages, and ordinarily I would be able to read a book that size in three or four days, less if I really like it. It’s driving me crazy that it’s taking me so long to read it, but there’s no help for it. Unfortunately, it’s caused me to neglect my blog, as well, since most of my posts are book reviews. If you’ve been wondering where the heck I’ve been, well… now you know.

I don’t like neglecting my blog, so I’m just going to have to start writing about all those other things I love to geek about, beyond the bookish side of me. I need to finish nitpicking characters for season six of The Walking Dead—I’ve only done Carol so far—and I have several other topics I’m planning to add to my TV Geekdoms category, as well. So while I may not be reading as quickly as I used to, I still have plenty of things to talk about!

Stay tuned!