I THOUGHT MAYBE it was the moisturizer with sunscreen. Or the eyeliner I’d been using lately. Or pollen-related allergies Or…. But no: The mistiness in my vision is a fast-growing cataract, and it will need surgery within the year.
 
I have always had unproblematic eyes. I didn’t need reading glasses until my fifties or distance glasses until just last year, and I don’t routinely use either pair. A little trouble with fine print and dim light, but that’s it. I was smug about my superior vision.
 
This is my comeuppance. There’s no real reason to be nervous; cataract surgery these days is usually straightforward, and most people see much better within a few days of having it.
 
And yet, it’s one of those things—like false teeth and arthritis—that all my life I’ve identified with parents or grandparents, not myself. It slots me definitively into the niche marked “elderly.”
 
Younger than springtime I am not, as I was reminded by the arrival of my first Social Security check (not that I’m ungrateful) only weeks ago.