Car now placed in park, I reached up to touch the top of my head. Yep, glasses still there. Good. I stepped out onto the pavement and held my wrist up to check the time. Eight minutes early. Okay, I sighed. “Too early to pick up the pizza, so I may as well get it over with.”
Instead of sidling into DiFranco’s to wait for my pizza, I turned left and headed up the street. The sun, now shining in the sky, seemed to suggest that while her intensity wouldn’t be up to the task of melting all the snow today, this would be the sun’s work over the next several days. A work in progress. Which is good.
Arriving at my destination, I pushed open the beautiful glass door. With a jingle of a bell gently greeting me, I took a few steps across a yellow carpet. Then, from behind a wooden table a woman said, “Hello! May I help you?”
“Um yes,” I stammered. “I need to, uh, schedule my annual eye check-up, or … exam?” This whole eyes-going-bad thing has been rough on me, I’ll admit. My whole life, my eyes have been amazing, bionic almost. Now blurriness.
“Okay, sure,” answered the woman. “Gosh, last time I saw you, you had just been in the hospital with the flu.” Wow, I thought. I only met this woman twice- once for my first eye exam, and then again to pick up my first set of reading glasses. That was last February! How could she remember such detail? I expressed my amazement at her comment. A bionic memory.
Leaving the optical center that day, I realized– perhaps not for the first time– I am probably making my need-for-glasses mean more than it really does. Perhaps it just signifies that, well, I am a work in progress. As are we all, right?
LANNY BALL, Literacy Specialist 
Yes, we are all a work in progess! Glasses – love em! I’ve worn them since I was 5 and they are an extension of who you are! An added bonus is that there are such fun frames out there! Thanks for sharing!
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Bit by bit, we grow older, we change … yet there’s something to celebrate in it, as you’ve pointed out so well. What a positive, encouraging message. Yes, we are ARE works in progress; we gain greater insight even when our physical sight begins to ebb.
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We are all a work in progress yes! What a nice way to frame it.
I haven’t been to the eye doctor in longer than I would like to admit. This is a gentle reminder to schedule an appointment over break!
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Nice pun, Tammy!
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I love how you use one of the markers of change to embrace this as growth rather than deterioration. As I squint through my progressive lenses and tie up my grey, grey hair, I will look in the mirror at this work in progress.
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Now I really need to make an appointment! I don’t have bionic memory so I needed to read a post and write a note to myself. I am hoping to see a bit more clearly as well.
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Haaa, nice reminder for me to make my annual appointment. Guess we are all a work in progress!
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I feel the same way about my eyes! I got my first pair of glasses about two years ago and I have avoided going back ever since! But now I guess the time has come.
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I love this because we all do truly have different feelings about our eye sight, glasses, contacts, etc. I tell my students my glasses are just another accessory and they add to my “vibe.” 😉 Also- thanks for the reminder, I’ve been meaning to call and schedule my exam, too!
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It’s nice to think of myself as “a work in progress” instead of “growing older”. Ha. Thanks for the perspective. Enjoy your clear vision again!
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We are a work in progress. It might mean a little something, your eyesight. But friends don’t mention such things.
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