In Which Objects Are Closer Than They Appear

Not a fabulous week for me in terms of making new habits. Ate food I shouldn’t have, didn’t exercise when I should have and haven’t been terribly focused on the work front. Then again, it was my birthday, so I’m going to cut myself some slack this week and try to rally from here on out.

Today I went to renew my license. It has been ages since I’ve been to an RMV and now we have one just a few minutes from my house. I was honestly a bit stressed about going for my license renewal. I have glasses that I never wear unless I’m driving in really bad weather at night. The eye doctor told me that I barely needed them, but I am never sure if he was just being nice or if my eyesight isn’t really that bad. I vaguely remember squinting to see at my last RMV vision test, so it seemed likely that I wasn’t going to pass this time around without some help from my glasses.

Even though things seemed to be moving along, it took about 40 minutes for my number to be called. I’m not sure why the license applicants were taking so long, but I was surprised at the number of parents (with teens in tow) who were shocked to find out that you need a birth certificate to get a license. Hello. How will they know your kid is who he says he is? And how come people don’t stop to think that they might need some form of identification to get a license? Don’t they teach that in driver’s ed?  Anyway, when my turn finally arrived I had worked myself up into a minor panic. I don’t know why. I brought the glasses with me, so it’s not like I’d end up walking home.

I told the woman that I have glasses, but that I don’t wear them. She told me to try it without. Apparently, this happens a lot. In fact, it happened to a kid before me, but he ended up needing his glasses. So I took a look in the little test-goggle things and read the numbers in the first line when asked. And the little colored numbers in contrasting boxes. And checked to see if the little green lights were on in my peripheral vision. And waited for her to ask me something hard. Did they change that eye test? Because I don’t remember anything being quite as clear as those numbers. So I looked up and the woman at the RMV said, “There is nothing wrong with your eyesight.”

Imagine that.

She took my picture and asked if I liked the way it looked (now they’ll retake it for you!) and even though I look a little smug in my shot, I said it was fine. Who wants to tempt fate on something like that? I just can’t seem to smile properly at the RMV, even though there’s nothing wrong with my eyesight. And the last thing I need is to be stuck with a really awful picture on my license. Smug is acceptable.

So here I am. My new license is on the way and I feel like I’ve wiped the slate clean somehow. Off to a good start!