I got my first pair of glasses when I was 10-years old. I remember driving home and noticing that trees had individual leaves. The novelty was short lived. I was embarrassed and hated wearing them. I thought they made me look ugly and I was forever 'forgetting' them at home.
The truth was that I needed them terribly and couldn't see anything without them. If my teacher wrote something on the board to copy, I would look at the person writing across from me. Outright copying was out of the question - my vision was too bad for that, so I would carefully watch the way the top of their pencil moved as they formed letters. It would have been easier to just wear glasses for the amount of trouble I went through, but there was no convincing me otherwise.
Each of the students in my class had a job or responsibility. Through a cruel twist of fate, I ended up being the projector monitor. My job was to set up the projector for any movies or slides that the class watched. While I silently cried at the back of the room, I remember the kids yelling, "Focus! Focus!" and the teacher gently asking me if I truly could not see well enough to focus the projector. After that, the jig was up and I wore my glasses during class.
At 13-years old, I got contact lenses. This was a huge boost to my confidence and I was thrilled to get them. The compromise was that I had to wear gas-permeable, or hard, contact lenses since I was so young and my eyes were still developing. As I got older, my friends who wore soft contact lenses struggled with eye infections and torn lenses. I decided it wasn't worth the hassle of switching and stayed with hard contact lenses, which I still wear to this day. Recently, when I tried to make an appointment with my optometrist, I was disappointed to learn that he no longer saw gas permeable patients and I was referred to a different eye doctor.
After a having my eyes dialated and a thorough exam, I was sent into the office to pick out a new pair of frames; the only problem was that I couldn't see anything. I ended up selecting a pair that I thought only contained a small jewel on the side of the frames.
Once my vision returned to normal, I realized that my frames had many jewels within a decorative square with designer initials stamped on it. They are completely heinous and nothing I would have picked with undilated vision. They remind me of something after it's been decorated by a girl with one of those kits where you accent everything you own with sequins and jewels.
When the light catches the frames just right in the evening, Husband will softly whisper, "Bedazzled..."
