When I was 3 and barely even able to talk I met Ava Holmes, the girl who would be my BFF(that’s best friend forever for those who don’t know the acronym). We lived in the same neighborhood, and our mom’s took us both to playschool, where we immediately bonded. Ava was a blond, with hair so light it was almost a white blond, and my hair, which was also fairly light was more like a dirty blond, or as my mom called it honey blond. Ava had deep blue eyes and very fair skin and I had brown eyes with gold flecks with a bit darker complexion. Our birthdays were within weeks of each other and that meant that we would both start junior kindergarten together when we were 4.
We were still inseparable by the time we were 12. If I wasn’t at Ava’s house Ava was at mine. Our parents had bought a second twin bed for each of our rooms and our fathers referred to us as their twin daughters. One morning we woke up at her place and Ava was looking out the window of her bedroom.
“I can’t see the words on that sign anymore Grace. I think I need glasses.” Ava said.
“Oh, it’s is too far away Ava. No one could read those words.” I responded.
“I know I could read them last summer when they put the sign there. Are you sure that you can’t read them either?” Ava asked me.
I scrunched my eyes up and tried to read the words. As hard as I tried I could not make out the words so I told her I couldn’t see any words. She told me that if she did what I had done and scrunched up her eyes she could almost see what the words said.
“I think we both need glasses Grace.” Ava said.
“I tried on Jo’s glasses last week and they didn’t help at all. They made everything really fuzzy.” I said.
“Maybe that is because her glasses are the wrong subscription.” Ava replied.
“Jo said she had something called Stigma’s in her eyes.” I told Ava.
“I think maybe she meant that she had stigmatism. I have been reading about bad eyesight and I think I might be nearsighted. But if you can’t read that sign I think you might be nearsighted as well. I didn’t want to tell mom because I didn’t want to have to get glasses, but if we both get them that would be OK.” Ava said.
I wasn’t really excited about the fact that I might need glasses now, but like Ava said, as long as we both had to wear them I wasn’t all that upset. We both told our parents, and we ended up seeing an eye doctor over at Jones Optical. I think the eye doctor was Mr. Jones’s son in law and was married to the Jones girl with the really thick glasses who was the receptionist as well as the optician. I had looked at her glasses when we came in and I told Ava that if my glasses had to look that thick I didn’t want to get glasses. Ava surprised me when she told me that she wouldn’t care as long as she could see with them.
I ended up with a stronger prescription than Ava did. My new glasses were going to be -2.25D for each eye but Ava only needed -1.25D. Jones Optical had a 2 for 1 special and Ava and I each got 2 identical pairs. Once I had my glasses I was surprised at how much stuff I could see. And Ava was correct. Now we both could read all the words on the billboard that was down the street from her bedroom. It was also a lot better in school because I could now see what the teacher was writing on the board.
Ava wore her glasses all the time. I had started out taking mine off when I didn’t need them, but because Ava wore hers all of her waking hours I soon started to do the same thing. We would decide the night before which pair we were going to wear the following day and we would both wear the same glasses that day. But Ava didn’t seem to be as happy as she should have been. There was something bothering her and she wouldn’t talk to me about it.
“Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong Ava?” I asked for the millionth time.
“There is nothing wrong. Well, maybe there is, but it is stupid, too stupid for me to say anything.” Ava replied.
“You are like, my best friend. Tell me and maybe we can fix it.” I said.
“I like the fact that your lenses in your glasses look real but mine don’t.” Ava said.
Ava and I had tried each other’s glasses on a number of times since we had gotten them a few weeks ago. Ava could see just as well with mine as she could with her own, but I couldn’t see very well when I wore hers. Even without her saying it I knew what she wanted.
‘You want to wear my glasses don’t you?” I said.
“When I look at your glasses they look like you really need them. Mine look like they have clear lenses. You are right. I wish I could wear your glasses.” Ava replied.
There was a simple solution. Instead of both of us wearing the same glasses every day Ava wore one pair of mine and I wore the other pair. In only a couple of months Ava could no longer see out of her own glasses. She told her mom that she could see better out of my glasses and we both ended up back at Jones Optical. It turned out that I needed stronger lenses as well. My new prescription was going to have to be -3.25D. Not only had Ava increased her prescription to match my glasses, she had managed to go a little higher, and now she required -2.50D. But Dr. Ewing, who really was Mr. Jones’s son in law, told Ava’s mom that Ava could likely get away with wearing my old glasses for a while. The 2 for 1 offer was no longer an option, so my mom gave Ava both pairs of my old glasses and her mom paid for new lenses to be put in both pairs of Ava’s glasses for me.
Over the next 3 years both Ava and I had lots of prescription changes and by the time I was 15 my glasses were -10D. Unlike Ava I had not done a thing to make my prescription increase. Ava had, since she first got glasses, worn her glasses every waking moment. She read a lot, and whenever she read her face was very close to her reading material. She would beg me to give her my new glasses every time I had a prescription increase and one time when we were 14 she took my new glasses to the mall and had my prescription duplicated into a pair for her because my mom had only bought me one pair. My eyes kept getting worse and worse on their own, but Ava was always forcing her eyes to become bad enough to match my prescription.
I had not really wanted to wear glasses when we first got glasses, and finally when we were 15 and my parents offered to buy me contact lenses I jumped at the offer. I got contacts and Ava begged me for my new -10D glasses to wear. Contacts, according to Dr. Ewing, might slow my myopic progression down a little. But I don’t think they did. I had been wearing my contacts for about a year when I failed my eye test for drivers ed. Ava passed her eye test wearing my -10D glasses though.
My new contact lenses were now the same prescription as my old glasses. I sure couldn’t see much with my old glasses though. Mom bought me a new pair of glasses; however she would not pay the extra for the thin lenses that Katie Ewing, the optician at Jones Optical told her I needed. Mom had seen me wearing nothing but contacts for the past year and she just told Mrs. Ewing that since I only wore glasses infrequently around the house she wasn’t going to waste the money. Mrs. Ewing tried to tell her that I really needed to wear my glasses at least one day a week, or I might end up not being able to wear contact lenses anymore, like had happened to her. But mom remained firm and she just told them to use the cheapest lenses.
Once I saw how thick my new glasses were I knew I would never wear them out in public. They even looked thicker than Mrs. Ewing’s did and I told her when I picked them up that it looked like my eyes were even worse than hers were. She told me that her prescription was almost -20D and she had the thinnest possible lenses she could get. What really surprised me was that Ava loved the thickness of my new glasses and whenever we went downtown to the mall she wanted to wear them. Once again she borrowed them and wore them into another optical store where she ordered new glasses with the thinnest lenses she could get. I have to admit that when Ava started wearing the new glasses with my latest -12D prescription full time they didn’t look too bad on her. But I didn’t stop wearing my contact lenses because my own glasses looked terrible. I had to wear them at home since I couldn’t see much of anything without them, and mom made me take my contacts out as soon as I came home from school. Once in a while I would sneak over to Ava’s house wearing my glasses but I would have been mortified if anyone from school had seen me.
Ava and I were doing a lot of studying. We needed a high score on our S.A.T.s so that we could have our pick of universities. I was planning to become a Geography teacher and I thought Ava was going to become an English teacher. Ava surprised me one day when she told me that she was working at Jones Optical for the summer and that she was thinking of trying to become an optometrist like Dr. Ewing. I knew that she was fixated on eyesight, but I had not realized that her interests lay beyond having to wear thick glasses. Ava had told me more than once that she would like to wear glasses just like Katie Ewing wore but I thought she was just saying that. Now I knew she was serious.
Ava really enjoyed her summer job at Jones Optical. She told me that she learned a lot about vision and vision correction. She had also gotten herself a new pair of glasses that, to me, looked stronger than her old ones that she wore that was my same prescription. I didn’t say anything, nor did I ask her any questions.
Just before we were heading off to university I tore one of my contacts. Ava and I were planning to go shopping that day and I immediately phoned Katie Ewing to see if I could get new contacts right away. My contacts apparently are stronger than the range of contacts they stock, so it was going to be a day or two before my new ones would come in. Then she surprised me and told me that since it had been a year since my last eye exam I needed to come in to have my eyes checked before she could even order me new contacts. I couldn’t get an appointment for a couple of days but I booked the first open slot. Then I called Ava to tell her that I couldn’t go shopping. Of course she asked why, and I told her about my torn contact lens. She didn’t understand my reluctance to go out wearing my thick glasses, but she did eventually capitulate and suggested that I should just wear my glasses and come on over to her place so we could hang out.
I did go over and we were up in Ava’s room. She suggested that I should take my glasses off and try her new ones, so I did. Things were a lot clearer than they were with my old glasses.
“Are they stronger Ava?” I asked.
“Yes, they are -13.50D. Dr. Ewing and I have been talking a lot over the summer and I eventually told him how I had been wearing your stronger glasses instead of my own. He seemed to understand that I had a bit of a fixation for strong glasses so he made my prescription for these glasses a bit stronger than I really needed. I love them, and I think they are great.” Ava said.
I looked in the mirror at myself wearing Ava’s new, stronger glasses. I was a little shocked over the fact that I could see so much better than I was used to seeing through my contacts, and I realized that I was likely going to need a stronger prescription when I did finally get to see Dr. Ewing. Actually, I had become so accustomed to looking at myself in a mirror wearing my own weaker, but thicker glasses that when I now looked at myself wearing Ava’s new glasses I rather liked my appearance.
“If you like them you can wear them if you want to go downtown shopping.” Ava said
“What glasses will you wear?” I asked.
“Maybe I will wear your glasses. I can still see fairly well when I am wearing that prescription.” Ava said.
“I can’t understand you Ava. I would rather die than wear such thick glasses.” I replied.
“And I love the attention that the thick lenses bring my way. I would have gotten the glasses you have on now in regular plastic but that would have freaked my parents out too much.” Ava told me.
“You are probably right. I know my mom was upset that my glasses had to be that thick.” I said.
“So will we go shopping?” Ava asked.
“I guess so.” I replied.
We spent the afternoon at the mall. When it was time for me to go home Ava asked if I wanted to keep her glasses until I had my eyes checked in 2 days so I told her I would love it if she didn’t mind. That is how I happened to be wearing Ava’s glasses when I showed up at Dr. Ewing’s office. Katie took one look at me and told me that I looked good wearing Ava’s glasses and that I should get myself a similar pair. All I wanted though was a new pair of contacts.
I didn’t think I had been wearing my contacts too much. I had always tried to make sure that I took them out every night after school. I had worn glasses almost every Saturday and Sunday morning. Yes, I had sometimes worn my contacts to school when they were not quite as comfortable as they should have been, but I didn’t think I had hurt my corneas. But Dr. Ewing told me that I should go without contacts for at least a month to allow my eyes to heal. I didn’t have enough money to buy myself nice looking thin lensed glasses in my new prescription as well as new contacts. Since I could not wear contacts I was forced to buy new glasses. My prescription was only a tiny bit stronger than the prescription in Ava’s new glasses was and I ordered a pair that was exactly the same frame as hers was. At least I knew what I would look like wearing them.
“How much longer will my eyes keep getting worse Dr. Ewing?” I asked.
“That is a hard question to answer Grace. My wife Katie kept having increases until she was in her mid 20’s. But her progression seems to have pretty much stopped now. I know of a couple of people who have had continued increases right into their 30’s. Everyone is different.” Dr. Ewing told me.
I had wanted to talk to him about Ava’s desire for thicker glasses and the fact that he had given her stronger lenses than she really needed. But I couldn’t bring myself to say anything so I just went out into the store and ordered my new glasses from Katie. I was a bit upset that I would have to wear glasses rather than contacts, but since I would be going off to university no one there would know that I hadn’t always worn glasses. And, during my contacts wearing years I had noticed that there were a lot more people around who did wear glasses.
Ava was a sweetheart. As soon as she found out that I could no longer wear contacts for a while and that it was going to be 3 days or so before my new glasses came in she told me that I had to keep wearing her new glasses. I was very happy with the fact that I would not have to wear my really thick old -12D glasses and I told her that she was indeed the best friend anyone could ever have.
Once my new glasses came in Ava wanted to try them on. She discovered that they were a little bit stronger than hers were but since neither of us had a surplus of funds, and since we were going off to university in a few days there was nothing she could do to get herself the same -14D lenses that I now wore.
First year university was very busy. Ava and I had chosen to room together and even though our classes were not the same we still saw quite a lot of each other around campus. There were lots of good looking guys floating around, and neither Ava nor I had any trouble finding dates for the weekends. We did study a lot and as a result we both went on into second year. At the end of first year we both went back home for the summer. I managed to get a job in a clothing store, and Ava was again going to be working at Jones Optical.
As the end of summer drew near, and the time was drawing closer to Ava and I returning to university I decided I had better have my eyes checked again. I had managed to wear glasses for my entire first year and I really didn’t miss not wearing contacts. I decided I wouldn’t get new contacts, and I hoped that I wouldn’t need new glasses this year. I thought I was seeing all right, but over the years I had never realized that my eyes had gotten much worse until Dr. Ewing told me that they had. Ava, on the other hand, seemed to notice the least little amount of blur and she wanted new glasses immediately. Having worn stronger glasses than she really needed for the past year had stopped her from rushing off to the eye doctor every few months and she was still wearing the same glasses she had gotten the previous year.
The day I went in for my eye exam I noticed that Ava had gotten new glasses as well. They did seem to have a bit more cut in than her other ones had, but they didn’t really look to be much thicker. Dr. Ewing checked my eyes very thoroughly, and when he finished the other tests he then checked how well I was seeing. As usual, with the prescription I had gotten the year before I could not read the bottom 2 lines. So he clicked a few lenses and now I could see everything again.
“I see that Ava got new glasses Dr. Ewing. Did her prescription get worse again?” I asked.
“Yes, it did go up a little more. Here is what her new prescription is now.” Dr. Ewing gave the machine a couple more clicks.
“Oh my gosh, is that ever sharp and clear now. Is that much stronger than what you were going to give me?” I asked.
“Oh no, it is just a little more.” Dr. Ewing said.
With that I figured I had better take that prescription so that Ava and I had the same prescription. I was pretty sure that I would continue going up a little more until both Ava and I had the same prescription as Katie Ewing. As Ava always said though “As long as you can see all right what harm is a little more?”
Specs4ever Sept 2014