Girl in a fine-print world

If I didn’t have to share mental space with an inner 12-year-old, I would’ve already put on a pair of progressive glasses or bifocals and been done with it. That’s what most people my age do.

Instead, I’m stubbornly rooted in defiance. When I was a 12-year-old girl trying not to look or feel as awkward as I was, I spent weeks learning how to put in, take out, and clean contact lenses. I worked to free my face from glasses and thought it would last forever.

But then I turned 50.

That’s when my inner child realized she now lives inside a nearsighted body that has somehow become farsighted, too. How is that even possible? The girl says this is stupid and totally unfair. I agree.

But even while wearing my beloved contacts, I can no longer read what’s right in front of me. The human arm doesn’t extend far enough for a girl living in a fine-print world.

The good news is that over-the-counter reading glasses have come a long way, baby. They’re cute! They’re fun! They have colors and patterns and shapes! Today’s “readers” no longer look like the wire-rimmed spectacles perched low on the nose of the scary librarian from my childhood – the one who preferred silence over children.

So I bought a couple pairs of readers in fun colors. Then I bought a couple more. And a couple more. My husband bought them in bulk. But even after I strategically placed a pair in almost every room of our house, the readers keep moving around – transported on my face, or on top of my head, folded in my hand, or hooked over the neckline of my shirt. By some cruel twist of middle-age magic, readers are everywhere and nowhere when you need them.

Where do they go? Are they sneaking off to party with missing socks? Do they roll under the refrigerator like loose change and bottle caps?

In an ongoing quest to keep them nearby, I accidentally end up with a pair on my face and another on top of my head at the same time. When I drive, I swap the readers for sunglasses and wear them to a store or restaurant. But then I switch back to the readers because otherwise, I’ll have to use the magnifying app on my phone to read the menu, making the young waitress pity me like I’m a million years old.

And yes, all this juggling for the right pair at the right time would be unnecessary if I used one of those chains people attach to their glasses like a wayward puppy. I ran the idea by my inner 12-year-old, to which she shouted “NO!” Then she reminded me that the scary librarian wore a chain like that on her spectacles.

The inner girl assures me there’s no need for such drastic measures. She says we’re still adequately cool, and we must hang onto it by our fingertips, like Tom Cruise dangling off an airborne plane in Mission Impossible. We still need our college kids to respect us. We can’t give up, put leashes on our glasses, and install clap-on lights. At least not yet.

And who knows what the future might bring? Maybe one day I’ll have a personal robot who reads all the small print for me. Then I can get off this unmerry-go-round of readers and tell my artificial assistant to fill out forms, decipher those microscopic user manuals, and scan the tiny ingredient list on Cheese Puffs to find out what makes them so cheesy and puffy.

Until then, I’ll put in my contacts each morning, wear sunglasses to drive, and hope a spare pair of glasses is within arm’s reach when I need to read something smaller than a billboard. My inner 12-year-old girl insists everything is fine and totally cool, and we’re not freaking out at all.

Sometimes, I agree. At other times, it’s too blurry to tell.

Gwen Rockwood is a syndicated freelance columnist. Email her at gwenrockwood5@gmail.com. Her book is available on Amazon.