New Glasses

 

I’m wearing glasses for the first time in over a decade.

Last weekend I came out by posting a glasses selfie to Facebook. It was a picture of me with my son. (You can see my half of the selfie above.) We were sitting behind right field at the Seattle Mariners’ first playoff game. As I wrote in Seize the Day,

Oliver chose our tickets to last weekend’s Mariners game. When we got to T-Mobile Park, I realized that in all the professional baseball games I’ve seen, I’d never sat behind the outfield before. I loved our seats – it turns out a baseball game is more interesting when you’re looking toward the batter.

Maybe it was the playoff excitement, or sharing an amazing experience with my son. Or maybe it was my new glasses.

I never wore glasses as a kid. My mother, my brother Doug, and my child Kamryn are the ones who grew up with glasses. But in law school I realized I was having trouble reading the blackboard. Then one night I had trouble distinguishing between a truck and a mountain.

It turns out I’m nearsighted. “Myopia” is not just a metaphor – it’s a common eye condition where distant objects appear blurred, while near objects remain clear. For the next two decades I needed a mild prescription to pass the driver’s test, drive at night, or enjoy theatre performances from further away than the tenth row.

I didn’t need glasses to read or interact with people. Instead, I got into the habit of taking off my glasses whenever I came indoors, just like I switch from shoes to slippers and from pants to sweats. Mr. Rogers is my role model.

I found freedom in my forties. When I renewed my driver’s license, I was able to pass without wearing glasses or cheating. My ophthalmologist explained that my eye muscles’ natural aging had canceled out my myopia. I remained entirely glasses-free for the next few years.

My ophthalmologist warned me the eye’s aging process eventually leads to reading glasses. I told him reading glasses are for old people. 

I have the same definition of “old people” as my son Oliver: “people my parents’ age.” My father buys big clunky reading glasses in bulk from Costco, then leaves them lying around the house and in the car. They’re hideous.

Although I’m a dad, I’m still a fabulous gay man. When I finally accepted it was time to wear reading glasses, I found a slim pair of lightweight tortoiseshell readers. I’ve stuck with them ever since. (Search for “Fisherman’s” or “Dr. Dean Edell’s.”) I only use my glasses to read, so I’m always taking them off and on. Nowadays I only buy shirts with pockets so I always have somewhere to put my glasses.

The workstation in my home office has a huge monitor. It turns out my reading glasses are too fabulous – I can only see a small portion of the screen clearly. So I bought a pair of lightweight IMAX-sized reading glasses to use at my desk. They’re not hideously clunky like my dad’s. Nevertheless, my daughter Eleanor made me promise never to wear them in public.

All good things come to an end. This year when I got a new job and could finally afford to go the theatre again, I realized the actors’ faces were getting blurry. Driving at night had gotten more stressful. When I went in for my first eye exam in years, the ophthalmologist said my aging eye muscles had reached the point when they need a little help. So he wrote me a new myopia prescription.

When my son was young, he needed glasses for lazy eye and cross-eyedness. Even though he outgrew these conditions, he still gets a new prescription every year. But he never wears his glasses. He says he doesn’t need them.

I used to nag Oliver about wearing his glasses. But now that I have non-reading glasses of my own again, I understand where he’s coming from. I thought I would enjoy wearing glasses while Bear and I walk along the waterfront. My new glasses let me see details in the beautiful islands and mountains that surround Bellingham. But our view is stunning enough without magnification. Glasses created a distracting frame around a small portion of the panorama view.

Because I only use my new glasses for driving and going out to shows, they now live in a case in the car. Meanwhile, something changed in the last twenty years: I have to put on reading glasses to use my cellphone.

When my children were taking driver’s ed, I told them not to look at their phones while driving. I try to model good behaviour myself. Perhaps too well – I feel vaguely sinful whenever I put my new glasses on in the car.

Several Baby Boomer friends recently had cataract surgery. They raved about suddenly seeing a whole new world.

When I mentioned these friends’ experience to my ophthalmologist, he told me I shouldn’t expect to be stunned by a similar sudden vision. Instead, the cataract process will gradually unfold over a couple of decades, and then I’ll see mild improvement when I finally get around to surgery. That’s what recently happened to my eightysomething father. Getting a new prescription this fall after a couple of decades without glasses might be as close to an “I was blind and now I can see” moment as I’ll ever get.

Oliver chose the tickets to our recent playoff game. Before this month I’d only seen the Mariners play while sitting in some law firm’s skybox, or from infield seats with a good view. The seats behind right field that Oliver picked were a lot further way from the infield than I’d ever been before. Nevertheless, as I explained in Seize the Moment, “I loved our seats – it turns out a baseball game is more interesting when you’re looking toward the batter.”

Maybe baseball really does look better from the outfield. Maybe I felt the magic of a special night with my son. Or maybe I just have new glasses.