Let’s Have a Chat About Glasses

I first needed help for my eyes when I was in my early 20s.  For a while, glasses for night time driving or while watching a movie would do the trick.  After a few years of decorative glasses that I thought made me look studious, wearing my glasses all the time meant better vision.  Decorative glasses were fun; full time glasses were not.  I took up with contact lenses.  Over the years, contacts and I were BFF and I never envisioned (pun intended) giving them up.

Then my mid-40s arrived and my eyes felt more and more dry in my contacts.  By the time I was 48, contacts and I had to break up.  It was either that or pretend I didn’t mind uncomfortable red eyes that looked like I’d been on a bender or in a sandstorm, events that seem odd (or inappropriate) for a school teacher.  Plus, I’d reached the point where reading in my contact lens required reading glasses.  I read a lot and so this became stupid.  Reluctantly, I gave up contacts and began wearing glasses full time.  I invested in a pair of prescription sunglasses and prepared to make my peace with the new me.

Though I like the way they help me see things, I don’t otherwise enjoy wearing glasses.  Even after nearly four years of wearing them daily (and more than 30 years of needing them!), I don’t quite recognize myself in glasses.  I am incredibly picky about frames and nine times out of ten I end up disliking the frames I’ve selected, having concluded that I look foolish or fuddy (even though no one has ever actually noticed that I have new frames).

I realize that all of this makes me seem rather vain.  So be it.  A few weeks ago, I got new frames.  I loved them at the shop but now I feel the stripes are silly.  Reality, however, is that no one can see the stripes and the frame shape is like every other frame I have ever selected.

Sometimes, I exhaust myself.