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Once you reach a certain stage in your life you will find that age overtakes you at a surprising pace. For me, that stage was reaching 80. At first I imagined that the inevitable "aging" bit would proceed at its usual moderate speed. You might be different from me, but I wouldn't, if I were you, count on the same leisurely pace between this decade and the next (unforeseeable) one.
We were talking about eyes recently, with things like dry eye, cataracts, glaucoma awaiting us. But those are relatively superficial and/or fixable issues. The problem that will really affect you is speed—or lack of it. The mechanism that controls light will slow down. The automatic adjustment from the bright sunlight of a summer day to the cavernous dark of, say, a subway station no longer happens immediately. Oh, it will happen. Your eyes will adjust. But you might want to remove yourself from the subway hordes for a few minutes until you are no longer blind. Just stand still off to the side, and let your eyes gradually change. There's no way to improve this condition.
Along the same lines is the slowing of focus-change. Look at the paper in front of you. Now look out the window. Look at your hands chopping an onion. Now look up to find the appropriate pan hanging from the rack. The change in focus, which used to be split-second fast, now takes a second or two, and you really can't re-find the original speed that has been with you your whole life. Like so much else, the muscles of your eyes simply move more slowly now.
An eye function that seems to have disappeared forever is depth perception. You probably won't have realized, in your younger years, how much of your movement depends on a reliable depth perception. Now, walking on uneven ground is treacherous. How high is that bit of flagstone? How deep is that pothole? How far down is it from the curb to the street?
In anticipation of this being your own new reality, I'm urging you to develop some patience with "older folk" who hold up your progress with their doddering. Their annoying tortoise-speed might stem from a mobility issue, but it's even more likely to be an eye problem, as they gingerly tread the paths of the park—or of life. Patience, please.
These conditions aren't life-threatening exactly, except when they lead to a misstep or a fall. But they change you from the confidently striding youngster you are today to a more cautious, more tentative person you will find it hard to recognise as yourself. This will be your NEW self. Which is to say, your old, aging self.
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com
