Reading glasses

I've been wearing my glasses at work now for about a year.  For a long time I forgot to put them on, since they actually don't correct my eyesight. So, putting them on or off: I don't notice a difference.  I only notice a difference in fatigue after a while because the glasses correct my focal point, and without them it's my eye muscles doing the correction all day.  By now I have the habit and I notice quicker when looking into the light of the screen that I need my glasses. 


Since October however, I start noticing that I move my phone in the morning to get focus.  It's like a projector where you need to adjust the lens to get focus.  In the morning or evening, text can be a little blurry. I can still read but clearly not as well as in the past anymore. I had already a cheap reading glass that was only used when attempting to sew or when attempting to read some ingredients and cooking instructions, which are printed in ridiculous small print on the bags lately.   
The reading bothered me more and more, and yet I didn't take the habit yet to read with those ugly cheap reading glasses.  I knew my yearly appointment with the ophthalmologist was coming up so I waited until then to bring it up. 

But in January it really bothered me and it was rather shocking to find myself once in a restaurant early February after a long emotional day and not managing to read the menu unless we jokingly asked the other people at the table to hold the menu for me at some distance.  

While I know so many people wear glasses and while I also have my pare it's the first time I actually don't see well and that's a very strange new awareness.  And I tested some reading glasses and of course that helps a lot to read but it's so damn annoying that you look up because the children say something and then the rest of the world is blurry.  Whaaaa.  I pictured me with a pile of glasses and constantly switching.  It's a bit quick to have bifocal glasses, right and even to adjust to those, you have to accept blurry transitions.  That's so dreadful, I feel nausea when looking up.

Anyway, I discussed it and she simply said that I now indeed need to wear reading glasses...and frequently. They need to be part of my life.   And I worried about another pair of expensive glasses and carrying both of them around all the time and take care for them.  But Jan quickly said that those are just cheap without prescription to buy and that many people have multiple lingering around at a lot of places. Ha! So I start shopping. I look for reading glasses in the Kruidvat, in the pharmacist, in the Hyper Carrefours, in the Standaard Boekhandel and start amusing myself.  Right now I have 3 pairs: two in Leuven (upstairs, downstairs) and one in the east of Belgium.   And I found some that weren't too bad after all.  

My looks

The need to use them fluctuates a lot with fatigue and is most needed in the early morning when scrolling on my phone.  I probably should use them more but that will come.  And maybe I pick up another pair with a good little protective box for "on the go" to read restaurant menu's or so but that'll be a challenge for my already full purse.  We'll see.



I do still think my children look the best in my glasses.