{"id":23465,"date":"2015-12-03T00:01:07","date_gmt":"2015-12-03T08:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=23465"},"modified":"2015-12-03T00:01:07","modified_gmt":"2015-12-03T08:01:07","slug":"the-cataract-chronicles-ill-be-seeing-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/the-cataract-chronicles-ill-be-seeing-me\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cataract Chronicles: I’ll Be Seeing Me"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Author<\/a>
The no-glasses me. I’ll need a make-over. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

One of the perks of having lots of years under your belt is that one fine day you get to have your cataracts done. Which means, if you’re seriously nearsighted like me,\u00a0you\u00a0get\u00a0treated to\u00a0a pair of brand new, precision-made, bespoke, intraocular lenses — and then you see\u00a0yourself in the mirror for the first time since fifth grade.<\/p>\n

I’m a minus five or six myopic, really nearsighted, and I haven’t seen my actual\u00a0face since I was ten.\u00a0I’ve been wearing glasses every day, all day for\u00a0my entire school-aged, teenaged, middle-aged life.<\/p>\n

Glasses off, my face is a blur\u00a0in the mirror.\u00a0Glasses on,\u00a0I can’t see myself any\u00a0better — not the real me, anyway.<\/p>\n

\"Author<\/a>
If you look closely at the lens on your left, you’ll see how it distorts what’s behind it. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Am I pretty? I wouldn’t know.\u00a0Mouth and nose are in place. Ears don’t stick out.\u00a0But my dark brown\u00a0eyes and matching\u00a0eyelashes? I can’t get a good look at them through my\u00a0high-minus lenses. There’s a lot\u00a0glare, for one thing. And the super-thick lenses shrink everything\u00a0behind them, causing my\u00a0eyes look\u00a0beady and my eyelashes stubby.<\/p>\n

But what if\u00a0my eyelashes\u00a0aren’t really stubby? What if they’re long and swoopy? What if my serviceable brown eyes are actually doe-like? Sexy even?<\/p>\n

My\u00a0first cataract surgery was coming up.\u00a0Time\u00a0to find out. I got out\u00a0my trusty\u00a0point-and-shoot, took off my glasses, and snapped\u00a0some pictures. Glasses back on my face, I studied the photos and tried to get used to the sight of the\u00a0new — that is to say, the old, really old — me.<\/p>\n

If you enjoyed this post, you might like “My Upper Lip and Other Sorrows.”<\/a>\u00a0 Also, “How Do You Play With A Barbie Doll?”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Author<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the perks of having lots of years under your belt is that one fine day you get to have your cataracts done — and you get your old face back. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[43,1594,1595,34,1596,566,1597,82],"class_list":["post-23465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-case-of-the-human-condition","tag-beauty","tag-cataract-chronicles","tag-cataracts","tag-dont-miss","tag-eyes","tag-fashion","tag-glasses","tag-on-the-funny-side"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}