May 31 - The Optometrist

A moment I could have waited a long, long time for… I’m turning 26 on Friday. Which means June is going to be the month of doctor appointments. My mom is an educator, which is pretty much the same as saying ‘my mom has good health insurance that I don’t ever want to get kicked off, but I’m turning 26 and that’s the way the world works’. My company offers health insurance, but appointments typically come with these horrible things called ‘copays’??? Maybe you’ve heard of them???? Adulting.

This morning kicked off my month of doctors. The optometrist. He came highly recommended and I wasn’t nervous until I was sitting in the chair, ready for my exam.

It was at that moment that I realized that I had not taken a legitimate test in years. The last test I had to take was my driver’s test at the ripe old age of 22 (a story for another time), and the test before that was at least 4 years ago in college. The point is, I had forgotten the flash of anxiety that comes shooting through when the possibility of failure looms.

‘Cover your right eye and read the smallest line you can,’ He instructed me.

Ever the over-achiever, my eyes immediately went to the smallest line possible. I can do this. I took a deep breath.

‘The last line, C D O P T.’

‘Great, now the other side.’

Great?! What does that mean?! Did I get them all right?? He’d already flipped the screen to a new series of letters, so I had no way to check. Smart guy. I had totally memorized them. But what was my score? Was I passing??

‘Umm, this side feels a little harder, maybe.’ I was stalling, I could feel it. Just read the freaking line, Larkin. ‘I think… B N C F L.’

‘Very good.’

NOT great?? Just very good?? This could not be going well.

‘Ok, now let’s check the two of them together. Whenever you’re ready.’

The screen flipped back to the first chart and I immediately caught my left eye’s mistake. That P had actually been an F. F for failure. ‘C D O F T.’

‘Perfect.’

Ah, amazing. So now I was perfect. With both eyes. Which meant that my individual tests had been ‘less than’. F, F, F. I handed him back the eye cover, resisting the urge to ask if I could try again. I couldn’t believe that when I had been younger, I had wanted to fail the eye test just so I could get glasses. That was definitely no longer the case.

‘Well, you got one wrong on the left, but it was a tricky one. P versus F. And the right was perfect. You passed with flying colors. Let’s check out what your actual prescription is on this machine, and then we’ll dilate, and then you’ll be good to go.’

I barely processed any words past ‘flying colors’. I had passed. Hallelujah.