on turning your negatives into positives

Or: How I Made Peace with Losing My Near Vision

Ageing gives us silver hair, laugh lines, wisdom, and perspective — and then it steals our near vision just to keep us humble. Of all the changes that have arrived with age, this is the one that annoyed me most. Up until forty‑two, I could read the tiniest print with ease. Then one day the menu started drifting away from me like it was trying to escape.

Apparently it’s called presbyopia — the lens inside your eye hardens with age.I don’t love the sound of that.But it’s normal, inevitable, and not something you can out‑discipline, out‑cream, or out‑manifest.

You can fight it for a while by holding things further away, but all that does is deepen the very lines you’re squinting to avoid. Corrective surgery exists, but I’m far too much of a coward to let anyone laser my eyeballs. So I did the next best thing:

I embraced reading glasses.

My first pair were narrow little things that made me feel like a nana — no shade to nanas, but you know exactly what I mean. I was constantly peering over the top like a disapproving librarian. They aged me more than the presbyopia ever did.

So I changed tack.

Most women try to make their glasses disappear — frameless, delicate, unobtrusive. But on me, they made everything look worse. So I went the other way: bigger, bolder frames that draw attention to my eyes and away from the lines around them. I had my prescription graded into the bottom of the lens so the top stays clear — no more peering over the rim like a schoolmistress.

Suddenly, the thing I disliked most about ageing became one of my favourite accessories.

I have tortoiseshell horn rims from Cheap Monday that love denim. A nude‑pink Stella McCartney pair that softens my face and makes me feel pretty. A Co Lab pair that fades from tortoise to navy — they make me look smarter than I am. and my Jonathan Kaes beauties for night reading, fully prescribed and unapologetic.

Different focal lengths for different tasks — one pair for books and laptops, another for close work like styling or shooting still life. It’s practical, it’s chic, and it’s a reminder that ageing isn’t something to hide from. It’s something to style.

So if you’ve been putting off that eye test, stop. It’s not the end of the world. It’s the beginning of a new phase — one where you get to choose frames that make you feel like the main character.

Run toward it. Don’t squint at it from a distance.