Don't accept a stronger prescription as the answer; there's an explanation.

I sat in the parking lot for a minute before I started the car. Everything looks fine. I drove home with a stronger pair and the same feeling I walked in with.

They told me nothing was wrong and handed me a stronger prescription. I drove home knowing both of those things could not be the whole story. I stopped bringing it up because the last two times went nowhere. That isn't the same as it going away. That's just me keeping the peace.

I know my own eyes well enough to know last year was different. I don't need a pamphlet for that. I need a cause with a name, or at least a question that isn't a shrug.

A new pair buys time. It does not tell you why the last pair ran out of it so fast. I'd been given the first job twice and never the second.

This isn't a complaint about a particular doctor. Seven minutes is seven minutes. 'Normal aging' is what fits in seven minutes. I wanted the thing that doesn't fit.

Being taken seriously sounds vain until you've driven home holding a sentence that closed the subject. Fine for your age. Everything looks fine. There's nothing wrong. Three ways to be dismissed without anyone raising their voice.

I don't need someone to agree that I'm falling apart. I need someone to treat a change I can feel as a subject, not a personality. A cause with a name would do. A question that isn't a shrug would do.

Here is what had already failed, in the order I tried them:

• Two different optometrists
• Accepting a new prescription that changed nothing
• Dropping the subject so the room would stay polite
• Telling myself I was being dramatic

Being waved off leaves a closed file with your name on it. The year you just had is still sitting in the parking lot.

Is fine for your age the same thing as fine?

Figure · the barrier

The question that reopened the file for me was whether a real share of the change starts somewhere other than the lens. A wall around the back of the eye. Something from the gut that may not stay put.

What people attach to that question is one capsule a day, with food. I wanted it on the table at the next visit, even if the visit stayed short.

If fine for your age did not answer that year, try it for sixty days and see.