dimming eyesight

Crystal is 45 and has recently started wearing reading glasses. It was natural that one day she would forget to pack them in her handbag but when that day came she went into a pre-menopausal spin believing not only that was she going blind but also that she had Alzheimers!

"I can see for miles," says Crystal, "but such superior long-vision was useless when it came to reading fine print and I realized my forgetfulness as soon as I sat down to have breakfast at my favorite diner one morning and tried to read the newspaper. I could read the headlines, but nothing else, and I felt so old and useless."

"Looking at my big-clock wristwatch," laughs Crystal, "I determined that I didn't have enough time to rush back home and return in time to start work so I decided to get through the day at work as best I could."

"The first thing I did was increase the font size of my computer and that, I thought, would solve the problem."

Unfortunately, Crystal’s boss did not want her to work at the computer that day. No, he dumped some fine print documents on her desk and asked her to underline all references to a certain person and then fax the documents to head office.

Bearing in mind that working with a computer and fine print documents probably caused her eyesight to deteriorate far sooner than age might have done -- and she is terribly conceited about her ability to remain youthful forever -- Crystal did not want to draw attention to her plight so she smiled brightly and soldiered on.

"I adjusted the light at my desk, sat back as far as I could without looking silly, and concentrating like mad I could just manage to make out the words on the documents and figured that if I made a few mistakes I could fix them up tomorrow."

"All went well until I came to the footnotes," sighs Crystal. "I could not see them at all. They were a total blur."

Mustering up courage, she snuck into the next office and asked the young girls who worked there to help her out. They were very kind but she could detect a hint of pity in their eyes and voices for the blind old lady before them.

Before the lunch break, Crystal had her first batch of documents completed and faxed them to head office. She was feeling good. She was not so blind after all. Maybe she did not need to wear glasses? Maybe she just needed to squeeze her eyes tighter, sit back a bit from what she was looking at and use better light!

Returning from lunch, Crystal got started on the next batch and was interrupted by the telephone ringing.

"Who? Maurice Brown, Attorney-at-Law?"

"Sorry, you must have called the wrong number, I do not know you," Crystal said curtly.

"Are you the young lady who faxed me ten pages of [top secret document]?"

Flattered by being referred to as a ‘young lady’, but slightly worried by the tone of the caller, she responded: "Err, did I fax the documents to the wrong number?"

"You did, and do you know how important those documents are?"

"Yes, I do, and I am so terribly embarrassed. You see, I forgot my reading glasses today. Would you please destroy the pages and not get me into trouble?"

There was a deathly silence and then a booming laugh.

Maurice Brown, Attorney-at-Law - or whoever you are - Crystal wishes to thank you.

Actually, this sort of incident has nothing to do with ‘old age’. It happens regularly to young women who’ve been wearing glasses all of their young lives. Crystal was blinded by her vanity, not by deteriorating eyesight. All she needed to do to safeguard herself from this sort of thing happening again was to keep a spare pair of spectacles at work - just like all regular spectacle wearers do.

It is true, though, that the young girls in the office next door would snicker a lot more at an older woman forgetting her glasses than they would at a younger woman with the same problem. With a younger woman they would dismiss it as forgetfulness - with an older woman they would put it down to Alzheimer’s, which is exactly what Crystal feared.

Deteriorating eyesight is just one of many physical changes that 40-up women have to face, and it is one of the easiest to cope with because the problem can be fixed very simply and does not make us look different to anyone else.

Crystal may feel different because she had never worn glasses before, but she has no reason to feel older.

Now, getting stuck in a chair because your joints have become too stiff to get up and down with ease is something worth worrying about. While Crystal does not have this problem at work, she does claim to have it at home and she flogs it for all it’s worth.

"I ask my children to run around and do things for me because they have younger legs than I have," explains Crystal, "and I ask my husband to do the same because he has hairier legs than I do!"