I think that I have always taken my vision for granted. When I was younger, I took pride in being the only member of my family without corrected eyesight. Sight is certainly not something I take for granted now.

It wasn’t until my early 40s that I really started having noticeable issues with my vision. I was diagnosed with an astigmatism and prescribed glasses to wear for night driving and movie theaters. I wore them about 50% of the time I was supposed to. Several years later came my first pair of bifocals. I pretty much never wore them.

I got my current pair of glasses about 5 years ago, they are also progressive bifocals. I initially wore them only for driving and occasionally for reading when my eyes got tired. About 3 years ago, I had to start wearing them all the time. Now, I am desperately in need of an eye exam and a new prescription (no insurance, no job), but I have to work with what I have.

I essentially wear my glasses from the time I wake up until the time I go to sleep each day. But even with my glasses, my eyes get really fatigued in the evenings and everything gets blurry, making reading pretty much impossible. Audiobooks have become my primary reading source for this reason. I’m worried that as I continue to age, I may not be able to read physical or ebooks at all (which is both scary and sad because not all books are available on audio).

**And for any ableist out there who wants to say that audiobooks aren’t reading, they most definitely are, and I don’t want to hear any nonsense about it (I saw a post recently that compared listening to an audiobook with watching a movie, seriously? Talk about comparing apples and cucumbers. The same person also claimed that increasing the speed on the audio made it impossible to absorb the story- I listen at 1.75X to match my reading speed). I’m a little passionate on this point, so you will always see me championing audiobooks and challenging gatekeepers and ableists on this one.**