I have wore eyewear since the age of 3.
My mother tells stories of her heart breaking when we would go to the eye doctor and he would put the "fuzzy drops" in my eyes.
The eye doctor said this helped him to see my pupils better. I think that's just something they make up in eye school so that they can get a chuckle out of people having fuzzy vision for 4 hours.
At 3 or 4, I didn't understand what was happening. I would grab my mom's arm, cuddle my face into her arm, while clutching at her elbow with my little hands. I would look up at her, clearly trying to focus but unable to, and then mash my face back into her arms in the hopes that when I surfaced again, things would stop being fuzzy.
Four hours later, it would be over, but to hear my mom tell it, it sounds like it was an eternity. Now that I'm older she laughs at it but I'm sure going through it, she remembers feeling like I thought she was torturing me.
I just remember the ice cream.
I also remember going to pick out glasses. I would always find the frame that was the most expensive and proceed to not want to try on any other. Considering my persecription should actually read "thick coke bottles" instead of the eye-dude language, the expense of the actual lenses were what the majority of the money was spent on.
I always bought coloured rimmed glasses. My first pair was an Annie pair - how cool was I? There were a couple of navy blue rims, a couple of maroon rims and the ultimate in funky, pastel pink. I think those years put me off pastels all together.
My childhood best friend L came up with the idea to paint her rimmed glasses. She used nail polish and would change them weekly. She was always so cool. All I had were my Pink Ladies.
When I hit highschool, my mom would tell me how much her work insurance would cover and I would go and pick them myself. I ended up only doing this once and probably made the biggest style choice of all.
The problem started when I invited my high school sweetheart A to come along and help. The intention was good - he would be able to tell me what looked nice.
What I should have also banked on was his stomach or more specifically his hunger.
By the time we got to the shop, he was starving but conceded to stop by to pick the glasses so that we could leave them at the one hour place while we ate and then pick them up afterwards.
I decided on a change - I would try wire frames.
I don't even remember trying that many on but I do remember A saying, "Ya, they look great, get them".
At this point in my life, I was wearing contacts on a regular basis so the glasses were purely for "emergencies".
I picked them up an hour later, put them on during the drive home and asked him what he thought.
"Uh, well, they don't really look that good".
I was stunned.
"YOU HELPED ME PICK THEM OUT??!!!??"
And there it appeared, his little whoops-i-did-it-again grin
"Well, I was hungry".
One of the many reasons we never made it past university. That and the fact he frequently walked into my work place and asked if I had any money for him. What was I thinking??!!
(we are still good friends but just more proof two Geminis can be disasterous)
And so, these were the glasses that I was stuck with. Not for just two years, but 10 years. 10 YEARS.
I just never got around to ordering any more. And all of the allocated money for eye wear, I would spend on my contacts.
Until this year.
D has always said how ugly the glasses are and he's right. They're big. Clunky. Make my eyes look like saucers.
And this year I decided I would splurge on a trendy pair of frames with the best lenses for my eyes.
I just got the lenses fitted last Saturday and picked them up last night.
I'm wearing them right now.
Frames from Canada, lenses from Belfast - worlds colliding one might think. Funky square rimmed, back to my maroon-style colour and very...well, very book publicist, if I do say so myself.
Now, I just need a few more outfits...
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