Thank God My Husband Is Going Blind
The Vanity of Men Keeps Love Alive
By Patty Porker
Fifty-six was the turning point for my skin’s tolerance to gravity. Having babies in your late forties can remind a girl that she used far too little sunscreen and perhaps hydration should have been a vocabulary word meaning something other than a garden hose to a Gen-X’er.
The fertility drugs were no doodle either. Never mind the permanent thyroid fluctuation that forces a coffee only diet for the rest of your life whilst you are steadily living up to the nickname porker.
I am as not as energetic as I was in my thirties. Proportional Theory is in control now and Father Time is a sadistic bast@rd.
That leads me to my first problem.
Dying my hair is like dealing with the bureaucratic process of applying for citizenship. Who knows when I will get around to it and I probably won’t do it right this time (either) despite the fact I have been doing it for twenty years.
Like most women, I have been wearing readers secretly since my 30s and unapologetically since my 40s. However, as with any good reader in existence, they do not make your eyes better, they—like a Machiavelliandespot—methodically cripple your eyes so that you might become dependent.
The thing I don’t notice is men wearing readers. It was a curious observation, but one I have come to realize recently.
MEN ARE SECRETLY MORE VAIN THAN WOMEN!
I can make this statement in good conscious. More recently, I asked my husband to look at something on my face. He leaned in and squinted.
‘Looks fine to me,’ he said smiling and walking away.
‘Wait. Did you even look?’
He turned confused.
‘Yes dear. Are you okay?’ He chucked and turned away.
‘No, wait a minute.’
It was when he raised only his left eyebrow as he turned away that I understood. He had actually not seen the glaring patch of sub-derm above my eyebrow. These new skin inconveniences are a product of age that I would rather not discuss but a prominent indeed.
‘Frank! It would literally have taken someone who was bli—’
Those words crossing my lips was exactly when I knew to ask:
‘Darling. How long has your vision been this bad?’
‘Oh, it is not so bad darling.’
‘You didn’t see the large snowcap parked on my eyebrow and you’re telling me it is not that bad.’
‘Darling, you are as beautiful as the day we met!’
The epiphany struck me hard. My husband was blind as a bat!
‘How long has this been going on Frank?’
‘Oh, just—’
I interrupt him immediately. ‘No, the truth!’
‘Fine, I guess about fifteen years.’
I fell back into my riser recliner. Yes, they are a prerequisite for aging gracefully.
My husband had not seen my “actual face” in fifteen years.
At first, I thought how rude it was that he had been inadvertently lying to me for years.
‘No, darling you don’t need a facelift.’
‘Darling, you are the only one our age that doesn’t need Botox.’
‘You’re as gorgeous as ever.’
The sadder fact was, he was absolutely telling the truth.
He had never noticed my grey hairs, nor my slightly rutty cheeks, the food on my face, the unsightly hairs that grew like tentacles at the bottom of my chin, the puff under my eyes nor the slight coffee color to my teeth.
He had not noticed one despicable flaw for fifteen years.
I however—with the aid of glasses—had certainly noticed the wailing age spots on his back. The ear hairs winding out of his ears like a trapped spider and the unsightly bush of hairs creeping out of his nose.
That is when I realized perhaps if I encouraged wearing readers it would rob me of my superpower:
BEAUTY IN HIS BLINDNESS.
What woman in her right mind would give up:
- Running around without makeup
- Forgetting to dye one’s hair
- Shaving or plucking less frequently
- Being saved from cosmetic surgery
I smiled at him and thought better of loaning him my glasses. He could keep his vanity, his good standing with the other vision impaired husbands and I could remain as attractive as I was—at least—fifteen years ago.
It felt like the perfect arrangement.
Awkwardly so, I am thankful for his declining vision. Perhaps God made it that way for a reason! He gave women exhaustion, so they stopped trying to win any argument and gave men blindness, so we did not have to wear makeup anymore.
