I miss my young Eyes!!

I can’t believe that I have gotten almost completely dependent on reading glasses!! Like most of us, it started about 45, just for reading. Now I can’t even focus on the Computer Monitor without using them, and it seems that it has gotten progressively worse in the last 6 months. However, I’m not surprised, especially now since I have worked for AcuFocus for the last 20 months (www.acufocus.com), where we are developing an implant to deal with this affliction: “Presbyopia”, or “Long-Arm Disease”, like we euphemistically call it. The darn glasses drop out of my pocket at least 10 times a day, and it’s a wonder that I don’t step on them all the time. But enough belly aching and complaining! Taking a little break at the office, a nice and slow Friday afternoon, just like it should be, winding down after a long week at the salt mine. Work life is very good, but very hectic, just when I think that I’m all caught up, we start another project. But it makes for a fun and busy time, and no boredom at AcuFocus! I’m really looking forward to summer; it seems that it has been a very long winter and dark spring, unusual for SoCal. Bring on the heat!!! At about 100F my old bones finally start to warm up, and life is as it should be. I’m on another health-kick, read “Younger next Year” last year, and the book gave me just the right amount of inspiration to start jogging again. I’m up to about 2.5 miles a day, takes me about 25 minutes, just enough to get the blood pumping. That coupled with a bit of bike riding and walking the dog, and I feel 25 again!! By the way, what happened to the last 26 years, I turned around and “Poof”, an old guy is staring back at me from the back side of the mirror. Thank God for the kids, they will keep me young for the next 30 years, nothing in my life has been more inspirational than having them, a blessing if there ever was one.

Speaking of inspiration, when I was going to Cal State Long Beach in 1994, I usually suffered from a severe case of self-pity. Here I was, a guy in my late 30s, going back to school with a bunch of kids. Bo-Ho for me, all that work and the future still uncertain. However, at the campus there was a truly inspirational student; this young lady would zip around the campus in her electric wheel-chair, going from class to class. Maneuvering here wheel-chair with her prosthetic arm, she seemed determined to get on with her life, and not worrying about her condition. This girl had no arms and no legs, just a torso and two prosthetic arms with mechanical claws. I would see her and feel ashamed for my own sad state of mind; but also be inspired to press on. If somebody with that kind of handicap can get on with the program, I certainly could too. 10 years later I still think about her, and wish that life continues to be a wonderful and wondrous journey for her, as it is for me.

So press on, keep pushing that boulder up-hill, and don’t look back. I know I will have a great week-end, filled with great activities with the family, and enjoying life to it’s fullest. And I still have my distance vision, which makes me able to see every palm-tree swaying, and every sunrise and sunset. It’s great to be 50, thank God I’m still here, and many more to come!!!

Kram, PL