After 26 years of pretty good vision, it came as quite a shock when I visited the opticians and was told that I’d need glasses. Growing up, I’d had a lazy eye and was one of those poor kids that looked like an extra out of Pirates of the Caribbean with my NHS-issued patch. Thankfully, I only had to wear it for a few hours a day… but I remember being assured repeatedly that it meant I wouldn’t need to wear glasses when I was older. It’s funny how those things stick in your mind, as plainly untrue as it was, it did its job and I wore my patch dutifully. Sometimes.
When I sat in the darkened optician’s cupboard 20 years later and read all the letters on the bottom line of the Snellen chart incorrectly, I knew I was done for. I’d made a valiant attempt at guessing them, which made it look all the worse as he then encouraged me to repeat the next line up just in-case I’d gotten extremely lucky. I eventually left the opticians clutching my prescription, hating all the glasses that I’d been shown by his assistant.
I found three pairs of frames online… even nabbing myself a cool vintage pair on the ‘bay, and sent them off to be fitted with my prescription lenses – the difference they made to my vision shocked me. I guess you could say that I simply hadn’t noticed how much I’d been missing out on. I remember the first couple of weeks wearing them, I’d keep lifting them to check out the difference between looking at things. Sharp, blurry, sharp, blurry. Simple things, simple minds and all that…
I now have three beautiful pairs of glasses. And I rarely wear them.
They look ok on me, I think they’re kinda fun to wear as they force me to change up my makeup and I can’t help but feel a little bit smarter in them(!) but you know, they just don’t feel like ME. I feel like I’m playing dress-up in them. I work on the computer A LOT and I wonder if I’m going to regret my lackadaisical attitude to my eye-wear when I’m older. Please tell me I’m not the only one who doesn’t wear the glasses they’re supposed to, I’m sure that I should have grown out of this childish-ness back when I grew out of the eye-patch.
The obvious alternative is to become accustomed to contact lenses. Out of my friends, I’d say that the glasses/contacts split is around 50/50 and I wondered whether that trend continues online? Do you wear them and if you do… how did you make the transition? I’m keen but apprehensive!
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