The earliest photo of me wearing glasses is my fifth-grade class photo. (I loved that navy corduroy jumper that was a hand-me-down from my cousin in Arizona, and look at me sporting our school colors, blue and gold. Go, RBS Crusaders!) I remember feeling scared and a little sick in my stomach when I failed the vision test during fourth grade. What did this mean? Was I going blind? The note went home to my parents and off I went to the eye doctor. Afterward, we went to Sterling Optical where I picked out brownish-butterscottish frames. I suppose huge, owl-like glasses were stylish back then. Of course, last weekend in the airport I saw a senior citizen sporting pure white round spectacles that likely cost a fortune, apparently thinking she was stylish, but maybe it was just a Miami thing.
I remember coming out of my bedroom after I got the glasses and could not believe that I could actually see clearly across the living room. "So that's what I've been missing," I thought. I had become so accustomed to my vision that I didn't even realize I couldn't see well. I must have sat close enough to the board in school so that I wasn't affected. Or maybe I just thought if you sat toward the back, like most kids whose names are close to the end of the alphabet and the class is seated in alphabetical order, the board was supposed to be unclear and fuzzy.
I wanted contacts in the worst way, starting probably when I was 12 or 13. My parents said I had to wait until I reached the more responsible age of 16. Lucky for me, my dad went back to wearing contacts after years of wearing only glasses when I was 15. He had such success with those lenses that he was featured in a brochure promoting them. And somehow (because we'll ignore whatever parental politics were occurring at the time) I received permission to get contact lenses, accompanied by The Responsibility and Money Doesn't Grow On Trees lectures.
My senior year of high school, I ripped a contact in Miss Lamison's first period psychology class. Luckily, my dad hadn't left for work and could drop off my glasses for me. My old-prescription-with-a-broken-stem glasses, that is. Back then, you didn't have spare pairs of contacts waiting for you in a drawer. You had one pair that pretty much lasted you a year (or longer). I made it through the rest of the day by propping my glasses up with my finger while in class and foggily navigating my way between classes without vision assistance.
I'm still wearing contacts as I'm not a good candidate for LASIK and I'm too much of a chicken anyway. My current eye doctor is so young I refer to him privately as Doogie Howser. We like to joke a bit, Doogie and I, as I attempt to get him to lighten up a bit. One year, I read a line of type and said, "It's a backwards E." He replied, "Or you could call it a 3."
For the last decade or so, I've been determined to read the smallest line on the vision test, so as to avoid bifocals or "readers." Two years ago at my last appointment, Doogie laughingly told me I was borderline and wouldn't be able to avoid it much longer. I scoffed a bit to myself and thought, "We shall see."
Well, this girl is no longer scoffing and I think there will be a more definitive prescription next month at my appointment. It's become harder to read in low light and to read small print. I have multiple pairs of readers and I'm often grabbing a pair to make it easier to read a recipe or a menu. Earlier this week, I grabbed a pair to read the small print on the instructions for John Freda Medium Brown hair color so I could wash those grays right out of my hair. I laughed as I thought how far that fourth grader has come since she got her first pair of glasses.
These eyes, and times, they are a'changin'.
No comments:
Post a Comment