When both of your parents wear glasses because they are short-sighted, and your older sister does, too, you know it’s really only a matter of time until you join them. And so it was with me, Nicole Greene. Gemma, my sister, is seven years older than I am. I don’t really remember the time when she didn’t have them. I vaguely recall the day she first got them, though. It was shortly after Christmas, 2012; it may have been the very beginning of January 2013. I was five years old. I was thrilled that I was able to do the grown-up version of the eye test and read the letters on the chart on the far wall at the optician’s. No more little pictures for me – I could read the letters, and was a little surprised when Gemma couldn’t. I didn’t often see the glasses she got. She would occasionally wear them when she was watching television in the lounge, and I presume she wore them at school. At home, we shared a bedroom; the house only had two bedrooms, so with our parents in the other, there was no real choice. She certainly didn’t wear them in our room, and nor did she often wear them when we went out – only when we went to the cinema and the rest of us wanted to sit towards the back of the room. The following year, I again read all of the letters without any difficulty at all. I was expecting Gemma to do the same once she had put her glasses on, but even then, there were three lines at the bottom of the chart that she couldn’t see properly. She was most upset when she was told that she would have to wear her new glasses all of the time, and spent the journey home trying to persuade our mother that she deserved to get contact lenses. Our parents discussed the matter over dinner, and it was decided that they would look into the matter of lenses if Gemma wore her glasses just as she had been told to for the next six months. She didn’t look impressed, but agreed to go along with the arrangement. Somewhere along the line, the deal seemed to change, and we found ourselves back in the same room for a contact lens fitting during the Easter holidays. Gemma was thrilled not to have to wear glasses. However, she only got 20 pairs of lenses a month, so she had to wear her glasses the rest of the time. Even then, I’m not sure that her eyesight wasn’t still good enough for her not to wear her glasses if she didn’t want to. However, as the novelty wore off, her desire to stay in bed for as long as possible kicked in. More and more often she had to go to school in her glasses, as she hadn’t got up early enough to put her lenses in. Our sight tests over the next few years took on a familiar pattern. Gemma went first and had her contact lens check. She needed a new prescription. I went second. There was nothing wrong with my eyesight. Gemma climbed back into the testing chair. She needed stronger glasses as well. We went out to the front of the shop where it seemed as if she tried on every frame in the shop until she selected the first pair she had tried on. A week or two later we went back to get her new contact lenses and glasses. She seemed to wear the glasses more than the lenses, so was accumulating quite a pile of unused lenses in the drawer where she kept them. In the meantime, I was beginning to feel left out. I was almost certain I was going to need glasses sooner or later – and in order to feel like one of the family, I rather wanted it to be sooner. The first sign of any change to this routine was when I was eleven. Gemma was home for Christmas after her first term at university. Instead of leaving our eye tests until after Christmas, our Mum had booked them several days before hand, so that there was enough time to make Gemma’s new glasses before she went back to Brighton. As always, she had her contact lens check and was told that her new lenses were going to be a bit stronger. I stepped confidently into the chair. However, the bottom line of letters, which I could read so easily from the side of the room, was not quite as clear, and I made a couple of mistakes. Now it was my turn to say whether the letters were clearer with lens one or lens two. I completely lost track of what I was saying. The outcome was that I was showing the first signs of becoming short-sighted, but as I could still read the bottom line with both eyes together, there was no need to do anything about it yet. However, it was highly likely that I would need glasses next year, and I should come back sooner if I felt I needed to. Then, it was Gemma’s turn and, as usual, she needed a slight change to her prescription. No-one who lived through 2020 will ever forget it. Schools shut, people staying at home as much as possible. It didn’t take long for the novelty to wear off. I had just turned twelve at the time. My parents both worked for the local supermarket, so they continued to work even through the lockdown. Gemma was down in Brighton. I was stuck on my own at home. Every day seemed the same. Get up. Have something to eat. Do some online school work. Have something more to eat. Play on the computer. Have an evening meal. Play on the computer again, or read something. Go to bed. If the weather was fine, and both of my parents were at home, we’d go out for a walk as a family. Occasionally, my mum would come home, get changed, and take me back to her workplace to do the shopping. I was bored stiff. My mum was absolutely amazed the day that she came home to find that I had actually started to tidy my bedroom. I’d been promising to do it “tomorrow” for a couple of weeks, and one day, I was so bored that I actually made a start on it. The room I shared with Gemma wasn’t the largest, so some of our drawer and cupboard space was shared. By rearranging her things, I was able to make more space for my own. I spent a couple of hours trying on some of her old clothes, dreaming of the days ahead when I would have the same sort of figure as she did. I worked out that if I put her underwear into one of the drawers by her bedside, I would have enough space to put more of my own clothes away. I was amazed when I looked in the drawers by her bed that one of them was absolutely full of her old eyewear – both glasses and contact lenses. It seems that no-one, faced with an unguarded pair of glasses, can ever resist putting them on to see what they can see. I have a couple of friends at school who wear glasses. Whenever they get a new pair, everyone has to try them – and that includes when they take them off to clean them outside of lesson time. I was no exception. The drawer contained five of Gemma’s old pairs, so I tried them all on. There was one pair that I could see through without too much difficulty, and another where things were blurry, but not too bad. The other three pairs were noticeably stronger, so I put them back in their cases, and back into the drawer. The other thing about trying on someone else’s glasses is that you have to see whether or not the frames suit you. There was no way I could do that from my position on the floor, so I took both pairs into the bathroom where I could compare them. The weaker pair, a black plastic one, looked fine on me, but I preferred the look of the round, gold metal pair. This had become Gemma’s look once she had to start wearing her glasses full-time – and it suited me, too. As well as the other three pairs that I had put back, Gemma must have had a couple of pairs with her in Brighton; the ones she had got at the start of the year, and another pair as a back-up. I wondered what it was like to wear glasses all of the time. The house was empty, and would be for another six hours or so. Now was my chance to find out. The first thing I did was to walk around the house, looking into every room and out of every window. Which was better – with the glasses or without? I wondered what would have happened if I had given some slightly different answers at my own sight test. I would probably now have my own glasses. If I told my Mum that I thought my eyes had got worse, would I get my own glasses? I knew that that question was purely academic – opticians were shut except for dealing with emergencies, and I could definitely still see well enough to know that I was not an emergency. Even if I did manage to get my eyes tested, what if they hadn’t changed since Christmas? I’d feel such a fraud. Besides, in Gemma’s old pairs, I had a couple of them that I could wear almost whenever I wanted. Even if I did get caught, I could say it was something to do with a play we had been studying in English lessons, and that I was just trying to act the part. The other thing that intrigued me was the sheer quantity of contact lenses in the drawer. Most of them were in opened boxes – presumably where Gemma’s prescription had changed before she had used them all – but there were also some boxes which had never been opened. Having nothing better to do, I decided to count them. I was both surprised and amazed by my findings: 473 lenses in total, with the strengths ranging from -2.00 all the way up to -5.75. Two hundred and thirty-six days when Gemma could have worn contact lenses, but had worn glasses instead. I was a little confused by the odd one… At this point, the telephone rang. It was easier to get up and answer it than leave it to ring, so I did so. It was an automated message to do with a fraud on my bank account. As my parents had explained how this sort of scam worked, I put the phone back down, and decided to go and play on the computer instead. With Mum and Dad being at work, I didn’t have to worry about sharing it, so I was able to play games to my heart’s content. I was so engrossed that I completely forgot I was wearing Gemma’s glasses until I saw Mum walking up the path. I dived into the downstairs cloakroom so she didn’t look in on me, and waited until I knew she was getting changed before I ran upstairs to put the glasses back where I had found them. Over the next few weeks, I wore one or other of the two pairs of glasses I could see through pretty much every day. At weekends, I had to be a little more careful, so although I still indulged myself, I made sure that I could hear that neither of my parents were anywhere near my room while I was wearing them. It did help that the landing outside creaked if anyone trod on it, so as long I wasn’t too engrossed in a game or my music, I was pretty safe. It did occur to me that I could go for a walk, but I did worry that I’d bump into one of our neighbours and that they might say something, so even when I could get out and about, I tended to stay in the house. As time went by, I started to wear the metal-rimmed pair more often than the plastic ones. I quite liked the fact that you could see the edges of the lenses all around. Somehow, to me, they felt like a proper pair of glasses. Besides, with the plastic pair, I was very conscious of the black line which surrounded everything ahead of me. With the metal frame, I felt it was much less noticeable. True, the lenses themselves were slightly larger, which must have helped, but it was also easier to ignore the difference between what I could see through the lenses, and what I could see around them. I had probably been going through this for a couple of months before I realised that the other reason I was tending to opt for the metal-rimmed glasses was that I could actually see better with them now. The plastic ones improved my eyesight; the metal ones made things really clear. I tried doing without either pair for a couple of days to see whether that helped. In the end, I was almost forced to put the metal pair back on if I wanted to be able to enjoy the world around me. I didn’t really enjoy having to leave my room when my parents were around, as that meant putting up with the blur. I knew I would be getting my first glasses the next time I had my eyes tested, but I didn’t feel ready for it yet. And even if, or maybe when, the metal-rimmed glasses no longer seemed strong enough, I knew that there were three more pairs I could try when I wanted. I reached that point in mid-May. Whenever I had the house to myself, I was now a full-time glasses wearer. In one way, that made sense, as the glasses I was wearing were the ones which Gemma had been told she needed to wear all of the time. What was much harder was those times I spent with my parents when I couldn’t see clearly. I might have found it frustrating, but the lengths I had to go to so that they did not see me squinting, plus the headaches I was getting almost every time it happened, meant that I did my utmost to try to avoid going out with them. If they wanted to go for a walk, I told them that rain was in the forecast. If they needed to go to the shops, it would be safer if only one of them went. If they suggested a ride in the car for a change of scenery, I opted out on the basis that I didn’t need to be there, and that they might appreciate being able to spend some time alone, together. And so it was that, one wet Tuesday afternoon, I opened the drawer with all of the unused contact lenses and the old pairs of glasses, and proceeded to try them on again. The black plastic pair were pretty much useless to me. There were a couple more metal pairs of a very similar style to the ones I was wearing, and a third pair where the metal was more of a rose-gold colour. It didn’t take a genius to work out that this was the strongest of the three pairs. It had the thickest lenses, and it was the only pair that was still too strong for me to wear comfortably. This was a shame, as I was rather taken by the colour. It was the pair which best suited my complexion. Nevertheless, they had to go back into the drawer. I did try wearing them, but after half an hour or so, I could feel a powerful headache coming on, so went back to the pair I had worn for a while. The next day, I opted for the thinner-lensed pair of the other two. I could tell that they were stronger than I needed, but the thrill of wearing glasses which were not my own had returned. Reading wasn’t particularly easy, but as my days didn’t require me to spend hours with my nose buried in a book, this didn’t really matter. My goal was to be able to wear the rose-gold glasses. I had just started to wear the fourth pair, in about mid-June, when it was announced that Gemma would be coming home for the Summer. I was very much looking forward to seeing her again, as it meant that I would have someone to talk to while our parents were out at work. I didn’t dare tell her that I had been borrowing her old glasses, so I had to put up with not being able to see particularly well. If she was around but not spending time with me, I tended to have my nose buried in a book. It was about the only thing I could do well-enough by this stage. On the occasions she went out to meet her friends, I was straight back into glasses. Now, I had a couple more pairs to try – the ones she wore when she didn’t have lenses in, and her previous pair which she kept as a back-up. They weren’t much help to me, as they were even stronger than the rose-gold pair, but it was interesting to try them. The Summer holidays flew by, and by mid-August, Gemma was making noises about going back down to Brighton to get settled before the start of the new term. She was due to be sharing a house with three other girls. Curiosity got the better of me, and on this occasion, I wanted to go out for the car-ride. There was barely room in the car for my dad, Gemma and me, as well as all of her stuff, but somehow I managed to squeeze in. It was quite a walk from the university to where she was living, but one of her house-mates had a car, and the bus services were pretty good, so she wasn’t unduly worried. While we were in the car, we talked about all sorts of things. Dad was busy listening to the Test Match on the radio, so I don’t think he heard half of the things we talked about. One or two of them were girly matters – I needed to know what lay ahead of me when puberty truly set in. I also suggested that I might tidy up the room we shared, and asked what she wanted to do with all of her old pairs of glasses and contact lenses. “Keep the glasses. Who knows, one day my eyes might improve, and I’ll be glad of them – or you might be able to wear them as hand-me-downs, like you have with a lot of the rest of my old clothes. As for the contacts, I’m pretty sure a lot of them are out of date, so you’ll probably just have to ditch them.” I didn’t let on, but I knew that I already needed glasses, but somehow I felt a little better about borrowing them, as I felt that Gemma had just given me permission to do so. My World was now really one big blur, but I didn’t want to admit to what I had been doing, so I kept quiet. In the confines of my room, I could see everything I needed to see – with help, of course. However, I was beginning to get a little concerned about the start of the new school year. After six months out of the classroom, we were finally going back. If I could choose where I sat, I ought to be okay in the front row. Most people automatically dived for the back seats, so I had a pretty good chance of still being able to see. My theory proved pretty sound, but it turned out that it had a couple of major flaws in it. The first was that the board was very blurry, even from the front row. The second was that, in a few of the classrooms, the teachers had determined to leave the front rows empty of pupils, in the light of social distancing. From row two, I couldn’t see anything. That evening, I was pretty distressed. I didn’t want to tell my mum about my issues. I know it was stupid, but if I could avoid going somewhere where I might catch Covid, then I wanted to do so. It left me with three other options. The first was to ask if I could sit in the front row of every lesson. However, that would put me in greater danger of catching the illness from the teachers, and I could fully understand why they wouldn’t want that to happen. I might not have been out much over the Summer, but the thought of having to spend fourteen days locked away at home really didn’t appeal. The second was simply to wear one of Gemma’s old pairs of glasses to school. Whilst I felt that this would solve my problem, the thought of being seen in glasses which weren’t mine concerned me. What if we met one of my friends in the supermarket and she asked where my glasses were. That would be unthinkable. The third option was to try wearing a pair of contact lenses, and see whether they helped. I didn’t know the first thing about how to put them in or take them out, but at least no-one would know. I’d also be able to see on those rare occasions when I was out and about with my parents. Tuesday was just as bad as Monday. I had woken up too late and had only had enough time to brush my hair before I had to rush out of the door. When I got home, I had a thumping headache from straining to see all day. I didn’t want to be seen to be squinting, which probably didn’t help, so it was a relief to get home, take a couple of tablets and go to sleep in my room. My mum came to check that I was okay. I didn’t tell her about the headache, but I did say that I was very tired as I wasn’t used to being at school. Fortunately, by that point, the painkillers had kicked in, and once she had gone, I popped on a pair of glasses and binge-watched five or six videos from people of my own age on how to put contact lenses in. I set my phone for a six o’clock alarm call. It wasn’t pleasant, but at least I had given myself an extra 45 minutes to get ready. I started by washing my hair in the shower. It gave me a reason to be up early, in case either of my parents asked. I could also use the excuse that I didn’t know how long it was going to take to dry, as there was probably about six inches more of it than there had been when the lockdown had started. The next dilemma was which strength of contact lens to try. There were a number which were labelled as -2.00, but they were a couple of months past their expiry date. It seemed that the stronger the contact lens, the longer that was left on them. The strongest I could see was labelled -5.75. I was tempted to see what they were like, but decided that it might be sensible to start with the weakest ones which were still in date. If I needed the strongest lenses, I’d soon run out, and the weaker ones would have been out of date as well. There was a whole unopened box labelled -3.25, and another one of -3.50, and a handful of loose lenses of both powers as well. It took me over half an hour to get a lens into both eyes. I now realised why there had been an odd number of lenses when I had counted them. I lost track of the number of times when the lens I was about to put in fell off my finger. Finally, however, I was able to see reasonably well. I managed to dry my hair, and I even had time for some breakfast – which did invoke a comment from my mother. My vision was certainly a lot better. I had noticed it inside the house, but I really only began to appreciate how much more I could see when I was walking to school. I wouldn’t say that everything was crystal clear on the screens, but I could manage so much more easily. I had a bit of a headache by the end of afternoon lessons, but it cleared with the fresh air on the way home. I’d heard that people needed to get used to contact lenses by building up their wearing time, so I took them out almost the moment I was home. Even that took the best part of quarter of an hour. Nevertheless, I felt that my first day in contacts had been a success. As I still didn’t have a great deal of homework to do, I decided to spend my time sorting the lenses into piles according to how strong they were. There were only about twenty lenses which were out of date, and then about 60 of all of the others, apart from the -4.25s, where there were just over a hundred of them. That meant 30 school days with the -3.25 lenses which I had worn today, before moving up to the -3.50s. I did wonder about trying out some of the -4.25s the next day, but decided that I would probably be better advised to work my way up, bit by bit. Besides, some of the -3.50 lenses were only a couple of months from their expiry dates, so it was going to be a case of use them, or lose them. It was quite a struggle to get back into the swing of being at school. I had to get up on time – in fact, earlier than before, so I could put some lenses in without being interrupted. The work was hard, and the teachers were working us even harder. We’d already missed six months of school, and the signs were that we would miss more at some point, as the rate of infection had started to climb slowly. By the time we were halfway through the second week, I was exhausted. My situation changed at the end of that second week. I had come home to an empty house, and I was too tired to do anything except flop in front of the television. The programme was quite interesting, but we didn’t have the largest of screens, so I decided to try wearing the weakest pair of metal glasses over the contacts in order to see the details. As they had been when I first tried them, they were a bit on the strong side, but at least I could see what I wanted to. The comfort of the sofa, coupled with my overall tiredness meant that I was soon fast asleep. And so it was that my Mum came into the room and caught me wearing Gemma’s old glasses. If I’d not been half asleep, I might have given her some different answers to her questions. As a result, I think I gave her the impression that I had been wearing them most of the time at school to help me see the screen, and that I’d just kept them on while I was watching the television. She wasn’t best pleased as she was worried that I might be ruining my eyesight, but by this time I was awake enough to point out that everyone else in the family already wore glasses, and reminded her that I had been a borderline case 9 months earlier. It was probably just my turn. By now it was about half past six on a Friday evening, so it was too late to book a sight test for me. I wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or disappointed. Either way, my secret was out, and it wouldn’t be long until I had my own glasses. Still, she didn’t know about the contact lenses, which gave me a bit of a dilemma. What did I wear around the house over the weekend? My vision with contacts wasn’t perfect, but was good enough for most things at home. I could wear just the glasses and hope that my parents got so used to seeing me in them that they forgot that they weren’t actually mine. Or, I could wear both. My vision would be super-sharp, but I’d run out of lenses sooner that way. Somehow, I managed to dissuade my mother from booking a sight test as the infection numbers seemed to be rising steadily. No need to take any unnecessary risks, and besides, while Gemma’s old glasses weren’t perfect, they were a lot better than nothing. Within ten days or so, I was wearing them full-time at home – but saved the contact lenses for school days. I hadn’t dared be seen in glasses in school, and with contacts, my secret seemed safe for the moment. As September turned to October, the weather grew cooler and damper. Although I normally made my own way to school, my mother occasionally gave me a lift. Sometimes, this was because I had overslept, and on other occasions it was because she needed to run an errand before going to work herself, and she was able to drop me off on the way past. Just occasionally, she did it out of the goodness of her heart, when the weather was really unpleasant. My normal routine had shifted slightly. Wake up. Get up. Shower. Contact lenses in. Have breakfast. Glasses on. Say goodbye to Mum. Leave house. Glasses off. School. Go home. Glasses on… It was raining hard on the first Monday in October, and my mum kindly offered to drop me off at school. This gave me a dilemma. She had become so used to seeing me in glasses, that it seemed as if she had forgotten that they were not actually mine. I wanted to take the glasses off when I was in the car, but I couldn’t use the weather as an excuse as it was dry inside the vehicle, so I wore them all the way to school. My plan was to take them off just before getting out in the layby about fifty yards past the school entrance, but when the traffic lights turned red, she told me to jump out then and there. With one hand holding my bag, and the other in use for shutting the door, I had no way to take the glasses off before I bumped into a couple of friends. “Hey, Nicole! What’s with the glasses? Are you going blind?” Too late. I had been caught. “I hope not, but they help me to see. At least, they do when it’s not raining hard.” I took them off as we hurried inside. I was desperate to change the topic of the conversation, but to no avail. Lily and Oli were having none of it, and forced me to put them back on, and then take them off so that they could try them – and declare me blind as a bat! Others wandered over to do the same. If they had been my own glasses, they would have had a point, but these were just a stepping stone towards the inevitable. The fuss died down pretty quickly, and after that, it seemed that everyone just expected to see me in glasses. I had to tell Gemma what I had done (without mentioning the contact lenses), but sold it to her on the basis that I didn’t want to expose myself to Covid, so I was wearing the best glasses I could find. She did remind me about the black pair, but I said that they didn’t really suit me – and I couldn’t see very well with them. The downside to being expected to wear glasses was that I became used to the super-sharp vision they gave me, and I started to go through the supply of contact lenses a bit quicker. About a week after appearing in glasses for the first time, I had run out of the -3.25 contacts, so had to go up a step. I didn’t notice any great difference, and after a day or two, I had forgotten what the earlier ones had been like. For the next month and a half, things went pretty well. Apart from the planned half term, we were in school most of the time. Things seemed relatively normal, although all of this was set against a steadily rising number of Covid cases. I could see the screen no matter where I was sitting in the classroom, and if it weren’t for the fact that I was having to wear both glasses and contact lenses in order to achieve good vision, I’d probably have forgotten that this wasn’t the normal way of things. If I had to take the glasses off, for PE lessons, or occasionally when it was raining fairly hard, I could still see well enough to cope. At the weekends, I could manage without the contacts if all I was doing was mooching around the house. I didn’t even miss Saturday night television, as I had got out of the habit of watching it. Everyone else had also grown used to seeing me in glasses. My friends thought nothing of it at all. I certainly wasn’t the only one in the class who wore glasses, and there were others whose glasses were clearly stronger than mine. Even my mother had stopped trying to remember to book me an eye appointment, and was prepared to accept the “let’s wait until the number of cases starts to fall” argument. I was quite glad when we were told that we had to go home and self-isolate for two weeks as someone in one of my classes had tested positive. Not being allowed to go out was a nuisance, but I was virtually at the end of the -3.50 contacts, and when November became December, they passed their expiry date. I didn’t think for one moment that they were going to undergo some dreadful overnight transformation, but decided to use the last few pairs up, even though I was stuck at home. Once I’d used the last of them, I thought I’d better give my eyes a rest for a few days, and just stick with the glasses. Occasionally, when I knew I had some time alone, I would go back to the stronger glasses I had been wearing before the whole escapade with the contacts had started, but as my parents had taken to checking up on me fairly regularly, if I knew they were in the house, I wore the pair I wore in school. I couldn’t see as well, but I could manage – and they were definitely better than going bare-eyed. I’m sure it would have been easier to start the Christmas holidays a week early, but as we’d already missed so much school-time in 2020, it was decided that even the five days before Christmas were important. No-one felt much like celebrating, but any opportunity to take some time away from the seriousness of the situation had to be welcome, and it was good to see my friends, if only for a few days. I had had to make a start on the -4.25 lenses, but the glasses were becoming a bit of a hindrance. The lenses alone gave me reasonable vision. They weren’t quite strong enough, but the glasses were definitely an overkill. I could happily have told my friends that I had started to wear contacts, but in order to reduce my chances of catching the virus, my mother had taken to driving me to school, and picking me up again afterwards, whenever she possibly could. And when she couldn’t do so, my dad could. I did once have to walk home on my own, but by that point, I’d had the glasses on all day, so there was little point in taking them off. At first sight, ninety-four lenses seems like quite a lot. Three full boxes, and a few loose lenses. When you work it out, though, it’s only a 47 day supply. I wore them nearly every day at first – on their own at home. I only put on glasses when I was walking around the house, and tended to take them off when I was in my room. Gemma didn’t make it home for Christmas. One of her coursemates tested positive a couple of days before the end of their term, so she was stuck down in Brighton until at least 27th December. We toyed with going to see her to drop off some presents to cheer her up a bit, but in the end decided that it was not worth the risk. We also cancelled a planned sight test for early January, as she wouldn’t have been there for it, and she would have been needed to pick me up from school to get me there. Gemma never did develop the virus, but a couple of days before Christmas, Dad started to show signs, and Mum moved into Gemma’s bed to allow him to isolate as much as possible. This forced me to wear glasses all of the time, as well as the contacts, and she only moved back to share a room with Dad when she also started to cough incessantly. And less than 24 hours later, I also developed a temperature and a loss of smell. Although it was the same virus, it affected us all slightly differently. Dad spent four days almost solidly in bed, unwilling or unable to do much other than answer the occasional call of nature. After that, he made a fairly quick recovery. Mum did her best to carry on around the house as best she could, trying to ensure that we had some sort of Christmas. It was probably about ten days until she really started to feel better. I didn’t feel too bad, but had no energy whatsoever. Even if my school had been open for me to go back to in January, I wouldn’t have been ready. Mum wouldn’t allow me to mope around in my room, and insisted that at least I watch television in the lounge, so she could keep half an eye on me. That, of course, meant I had to wear glasses and contacts in order to be able to watch it properly. By the time I was feeling well enough to do anything else, I realised that I was about halfway through the contacts. I was now wearing them every day, even if only to mooch around the house, so my 22 day supply was probably going to last me exactly that – 22 days. As it worked out, I was able to extend it to 24 days. I had a couple of days which I mostly spent reading. I did emerge from my room and sat in the lounge for a few hours while I did this. It might have been more convenient just to wear one of the stronger pairs of glasses, but I decided against it. I knew I was going to need my own pair sooner or later, but having had Covid once, I really didn’t want to risk getting it a second time. When I was left alone in my room to do my school work, I found it easier to do it without the glasses over the contacts. When it snowed, in early February, I put some of my lethargy behind me and went outside for an hour or two. I couldn’t miss the opportunity to make a good snowman, after all. By the time it was announced that we were likely to return to school at the beginning of March, I only had a couple of pairs of -4.25 contacts left. By this point, I could wear the glasses over the contacts without too much difficulty. My time playing in the snow had shown me that the contact lenses on their own were too weak. Distant objects were a little on the fuzzy side. When I put the glasses on over the top, I could see well enough, but still had the sensation that my eyes were working quite hard to bring things into focus. I nervously awaited the day when I had to move up to the -5.00 lenses. I was pretty sure that I would be able to see really well with them. And so it proved. The awkward thing was that everyone now expected to see me in glasses, so I had to keep wearing them. I had reached the conclusion that I was probably making my eyes worse by doing so, but it didn’t particularly bother me. Poor eyesight ran in the family, so the chances that I could have avoided it were pretty slim. Also, I felt that Gemma’s eyes had to be worse than mine, as I was using up the contacts that were too weak for her. I didn’t know exactly how strong the contacts she had in Brighton were, but somewhere above -6 was pretty certain. I spent a couple of days trying to avoid glasses where possible, but it was such a nuisance having to put them on every time someone facetimed me, or I had to leave my room, or I heard one of my parents coming up the stairs, that I soon decided it was just easier to keep them on and just get used to them. It was usually only an issue first thing in the morning or later in the evening. For the rest of the time, my eyes seemed to adapt. I was thrilled when we were finally allowed to go back to school. Lessons on computers had lost their novelty factor. I couldn’t chat to my friends between classes, or on the way to or from school. We had to be careful at break and lunchtimes not to sit too close to each other. As we got back into the swing of things, and various shops started to reopen, a couple of my friends got new glasses, and another two got their first pairs. One of them, Candice, was even told she had to wear them all the time from day one. We probably shouldn’t have spent time swapping glasses, but hers appeared to be a similar strength to the ones I was wearing, as I found out when it was my turn to try them on. This acted as a reminder to me that my turn was coming. As far as the opticians knew, I was still a borderline case who had yet to be prescribed her first pair. I was overdue an eye test, and I already knew pretty much what the outcome would be. It would have made sense to get it over and done with at that stage, but I still could not bring myself to say anything. When I got home that evening, I counted all of the contacts I had left. July 26th would be my last day in lenses. By that time, I would have to say something, or spend the entire Summer holiday in a blur. In the end, the decision was taken out of my hands. Sometime at the beginning of June, Gemma phoned home and asked Mum to make her an eye appointment for the next month. She needed to get her contact lenses properly checked as they were not going to let her have any more lenses until she had done so. She was also pretty sure that she needed a change of prescription in her glasses. Needless to say, an appointment was made for me as well. July 5th was G-Day, as I came to think of it. Now that I knew my fate was almost sealed, I started to prepare my parents for what was certain to come. When they were in the room and I was watching the television, I made a point of squinting at it – so much so, that my mother even asked whether she should see if they could fit me in sooner. I declined on the basis that I could cope for a few weeks, but did say that I thought my eyes had changed quite a lot. That was probably an understatement. -5.75 in contacts, with glasses that you might be expected to wear all the time over the top. The combination was stronger than I needed, but it was bearable. My eyes had got worse over the last few months. I was certain of that. Just as with earlier combinations, the contacts only went so far to correct my vision; the glasses made it really crisp, and a bit more. Monday 5th July was a day which I shall never forget. Gemma picked me up from school at lunchtime. My mother couldn’t get the time off work to take me for the sight test after school, so she had booked it so that she could pop along and sign any forms that needed signing during her lunch break. I decided against wearing any contact lenses that morning. I didn’t know whether they’d be able to tell that I had been wearing them, but I didn’t really want to find out. Even from my seat in the front row, I couldn’t see clearly enough. If I had been squinting to prepare my mother for the fact that I was going to need glasses, this was very much for real. It didn’t go unnoticed, and one of my friends commented that I really needed to get my eyes tested and get some new glasses. She did wonder how my eyes had seemed to get so much worse over the weekend, but I assured her that I had had a problem for a while, and that she had only just spotted it. I was offered some other pairs of glasses to try, but told them I had already got a test booked for the afternoon, and we’d see what happened. Until we reached the car park, I don’t think I had realised how poor my eyesight now was. I decided to leave Gemma’s old glasses in the car, so what I could see was my natural vision. I couldn’t remember how long it had been since I had last left my house without a pair of contacts in – and almost always glasses over the top. Fortunately, I knew my way well enough, and I had Gemma with me, so I didn’t have any trouble finding where I was going. Our first appointment was booked for 1.30. That was always going to be Gemma’s contact lens check. As we were there a few minutes early, they filled in the various paperwork and did some of the preliminary testing. And, since Gemma was over 18, she was able to sign some of the forms so we could get started straight away. I did the test with the house, and the one with the puff of air. Gemma was told that they would do hers later, once she had taken her lenses out, and then we made our way into the darkened room. She took her place in the big black chair, while I sat at the side of the room. I couldn’t see a lot of what was going on, so I had to listen even more carefully. In the end, her eyes were given a clean bill of health, but she was told that her new contact lens prescription was going to be a bit stronger. She was about to get out of the chair so that I could have my eyes tested, but the lady suggested that she stay right where she was. Mum had still not arrived, so she suggested doing Gemma’s sight test first. Then, if Mum had got there by the time it was my turn, Gemma could go off and do the tests they couldn’t do while she had her lenses in, and Mum could sit in on my eye test. That’s pretty much what happened. About two minutes after they had started, there was a quiet knock at the door. The lady got up and opened it, and Mum slipped in and sat down beside me. Again, I listened really carefully to Gemma’s answers as the test went on, and managed to learn that the first three letters were E, T and K, but beyond that, I couldn’t remember the correct combination with any certainty, so I gave up trying. I could tell from the questions and answers that she couldn’t read the bottom line at the beginning, but she could now. The result was a slightly stronger prescription for her glasses, to go with the one for her contact lenses. Then, it was my turn. My heart was racing, and my legs felt like jelly as I took my place in the big, black chair. I looked at the mirror at the far end of the room. All I could see was a light, with a few black splodges on it. “E, T, K,” I kept telling myself. There were a couple of minutes silence while the lady read through my notes, and looked at the printout from the little house machine. She then started asking me various questions. I decided to be reasonably honest, in case my mother piped up and dropped me in it. I owned up to having borrowed a pair of Gemma’s old glasses to help me at school the previous September, and told her how we’d had to cancel our sight tests over Christmas because we’d had Covid. She listened very carefully, and jotted a few things down. I also told her that things were no longer very good with the glasses, and that I was struggling to see clearly even with them. Then, the testing began. She started by shining a very bright light in front of my right eye and moving it around a bit. She then did the same with the left one. She picked a lens out of her tray, and repeated the process, and then a third lens. It was only after she had spent a couple of minutes doing that, that she asked me how much of the chart I could read. I was about to trot the letters “E, T, K” out, when I decided I might as well tell her the truth. “I can’t read any of it. Can you make the letters a bit bigger?” Rather than doing that, she picked up the funny glasses which were on her desk. There were some lenses in them already. She went to take them out, then seemed to think better of it, and put them on my face. Immediately, letters became visible on the chart. I was glad I hadn’t trotted out the “E, T, K” as somewhere along the line, she had changed it. She adjusted the frame so that it felt firm against my face. After that, she covered my left eye, and asked me to read as much as possible with the right one. I breezed through the first screen, and was doing well on the second one until I got to the very bottom row. There were a couple of letters I wasn’t sure of, but could see when she changed a lens in the frame. She also asked me whether one lens made the letters clearer or smaller and darker. I’m not sure my answer of “both” was very helpful, but that was the way it seemed to me. Clearly, it wasn’t the right answer, as she put the lens back in her tray. This was then followed by a succession of tests which seemed to make everything blurry, until these came to an end, and we went through an almost identical process with my left eye. Once I could read the bottom line, she took the trial frames off, and used some of her other machines to have a look at the inside of my eyes. If I had been nervous before the test, I was even more so now, as she hadn’t said a word to me about what she was thinking. It was all “put your chin here, look here, look there… Look deep into my eyes (I think I made that one up).” I felt sure that my Mum could hear my heart beating as the lady went back to my notes and started writing in detail. Then, she picked up the trial frames, took all of the lenses out, put some new ones in and put them back on my face. “How’s that?” she asked. “I can see really well. Much better than I can with my sister’s old glasses.” “I’m not surprised. I’ve had a number of patients who have experienced significant changes in their myopia over, in your case, the last year and a half. I’m not sure which old pair of your sister’s glasses you have been wearing, but I suspect they weren’t much help. Normally, I remember to take the lenses out of the trial frame between patients, but I forgot to do so after I had finished testing your sister, so the first set of lenses you tried were your sister’s new prescription. We then adjusted things slightly to help you see better. But, there’s a couple more tests I’d like to try. Follow me.” I went to take the trial frames off, but was told to leave them where they were. We went out into the shop, and then outside. She made me look at something off in the distance, which I could see perfectly. So I told her so. “Can you still see it perfectly if I add these lenses in?” “Yes.” “And what about if I take these lenses out?” She seemed to take two lenses out of the trial frame. By the light of day, I could see that one was red, and the other was black. “I can still see clearly.” “And what about if I put this lens back in, or is that a bit too strong?” I was tempted to say that it made things even clearer, but I could just start to feel my eyes working a little bit harder, so I admitted that it was probably a bit too much. We then back into the testing room, where my mother was waiting. We’d probably only been outside for two or three minutes, but I suspect she had been wondering where we had got to. The lady gave me a chart to hold and read, which I did without any difficulty. “Well, Mrs. Greene,” she said, turning to my mother. “It would seem that the last year and a half has been very unkind on Nicole’s eyesight, and she urgently needs glasses. In fact, her prescription is slightly stronger than your older daughter’s.” I gasped audibly. “Yes, I’m afraid so.” “Is that because I borrowed her glasses when I didn’t need them?” She kindly explained that this was most unlikely, as today’s test had shown that they would not have been strong enough. She did say that she would like to add half a diopter to my prescription, if we agreed, so that my glasses should last me a little longer. “If we do that, your glasses will have the same lenses in as you have in the trial frames. What do you think?” “I don’t particularly like the idea of my daughter wearing strong glasses but if she can see clearly with those, we might as well do it. I don’t really want to be back here in two months’ time if I can help it,” was my mother’s comment. “Yes, they’re fine by me, but can I get contact lenses as well?” “Let’s get you the right glasses first, then we can think about that later. She will be able to wear contacts, won’t she?” “There’s no obvious reason why not, but we won’t know for certain until Nicole has had the chance to try them for herself.” When we came out of the consulting room, Gemma was busy trying on frames. Mum was in a bit of a hurry to get back to work, but had a few minutes to help me choose a frame. Fortunately, I had a fair idea of what I wanted. My problem was that I had to get rather close to the frames to see what they had available. It took me a couple of minutes to find exactly what I was looking for: fairly round, silver metal frames – not so big that they looked silly, but not so small that it looked like I was wearing a child-sized frame. They tried to push my Mum into spending extra money for thinner lenses for me, so she gave me the choice: thinner lenses now, or look into contact lenses later in the year. “The same for you, Gemma. You can have thinner lenses in your new glasses, or I’ll keep paying for your contact lenses. The choice is yours. And hurry up over choosing your frames. I’m willing to give you £100 towards them if you decide in the next two minutes. Otherwise, I’ll have to go back to work, and you’ll be paying the full price yourself.” “I’ve got it down to one of three frames. What do you think?” Gemma proceeded to model the frames. She had clearly decided to go for a change of style, and go back to plastic frames. To be honest, all three frames suited her, but as that didn’t really help speed things up, I chose the second one – they were a bit more rectangular than the first pair she showed us, and a little rounder than the third. Mum agreed, but Gemma wasn’t so sure. “You’re free to disagree with us, but why ask if you’ve already made your mind up?” “Go on then, I’ll take the second pair.” Mum paid her contribution towards Gemma’s new glasses, and then had to head back to work. It took another ten minutes or so for them to finish taking the measurements and sorting out the final bill, although it felt rather longer. When we got back to the car, I put the old, round glasses on. They seemed to make very little difference, but, I suppose distant objects were a little less blurry. “You’re finally getting your own glasses, then?” Gemma asked, as she started the engine. “About time, too, if you ask me. Even with those on, you seem to spend half your time squinting. It’ll give you wrinkles before your time. I bet they’re going to be quite strong, too – as they tried to get Mum to pay for the high index lenses. What is your prescription?” It was no lie to say that I didn’t know. The lady had given the paper copy to Mum, and I had been too far away to read any of the numbers the assistant had typed into the computer. “What’s yours, then?” “I’m not sure. The paper is in my purse. I’ll have a look when we get home.” The answer turned out to be -7.25 and -7.00. It seemed like quite a big jump from the -6.00 contact lenses she had in the bathroom. When I pointed this out, she explained how her glasses had been stronger than her contacts for several years because the contact lenses sit on the eyeball but the glasses are a bit further away. I didn’t say that I knew my glasses were going to be a bit stronger than hers; she’d find out soon enough. It was tempting to try some of the -6.00 lenses to school the next day, but as I didn’t know how well she kept count of what was in the bathroom, I didn’t dare. When my friends asked me how my appointment had gone, I merely said that I needed stronger glasses, and that I should get them some time next week. I did look for my prescription slip that evening, but either it was still in Mum’s handbag, or she’d filed it away somewhere for safe keeping – and I hadn’t a clue where that might be. As Gemma had gone out somewhere, her glasses were sitting in the bathroom. I tried them on over the contact lenses I still had in, but couldn’t see anything. With the lenses out, things were much easier to see than they had been for a while. The bushes outside had leaves, although the ones at the bottom of the garden were one large green shape; clear enough, but lacking in detail. It was quite an exciting thought that I was soon going to have my own glasses, and that they would already be stronger than Gemma’s. In fact, my glasses would be the strongest in the house. My sense of self-pride in this soon turned to anxiety and panic as it dawned on me that this meant I had the worst eyesight, and I was only 13. At this rate, by the time I reached Gemma’s age, my glasses might be minus twenty something. Or, more worryingly, would I be blind? A quick check on the internet showed me that some people did have glasses with this sort of prescription. It gave me a little reassurance, as there would be no point at all in making glasses for someone who could see nothing, but the lenses, with the little circles in the middle, looked like nothing I had ever seen before. I was surprised when my phone showed me that Gemma had messaged me sometime during the day on Thursday: “Your glasses are ready. Will pick you up 3.30, usual spot.” Again, I was a complete mixture of emotions. Excited to finally be getting my own glasses; intrigued to see what they looked like; worried about what others would say when they saw them; concerned that I hadn’t given the right answers when the lady suggested making the lenses a little bit stronger. I was halfway to the school gate at the end of the day, when I realised I still had contact lenses in. Panic set in. Gemma would be waiting for me, but I couldn’t go into town like this – and if I took the lenses out in front of her, she’d know exactly what had happened to her old lenses. I hurriedly excused myself from my friends, and ran back to the toilet. It took me a bit longer to take the lenses out than usual, as I was rather flustered. Then, as I was going to tell Gemma I was late because I had been to the toilet, it seemed a fairly good idea to turn it into the truth – or at least, a half truth. As I had before, I took the gold pair of glasses off and left them in the car. Everyone else had seen me in them, but it felt wrong to wear them into the optician’s, knowing they weren’t actually mine. We had to wait about ten minutes to be served when we got there. There was an elderly couple who were being fitted for their glasses taking up the time of one of the assistants, while the other was busy sorting out a couple of twins I recognised from year 7 prior to their eye tests. I didn’t know whether they wore glasses or not, but I had never seen them in them, so maybe it was just a routine check-up. Eventually a third assistant appeared from the back of the shop. It was the same lady who had seen us the other day. “It’s Gemma and Nicole, isn’t it?” she asked, smiling. “How can I help?” “You phoned us earlier to say that Nicole’s glasses were ready.” “What’s your surname, again?” “Greene.” “If you’d like to take a seat over there,” she waved towards a couple of spare computer terminals in the middle of the room, “I’ll go and get them for you.” The two minute wait felt like twenty. It wasn’t helped by the fact that, just as the assistant was about to get back to us, with a black glasses case in her hand, the phone rang. “One moment, please.” It took her a couple more minutes to sort out whoever it was with an appointment. She had hardly taken two steps from the phone, when it rang again. “Julie, can you get that?” she called to someone I couldn’t see. “I have a customer waiting, and I took the last call.” There was a muffled response from the back of the shop, and a moment later, the phone stopped ringing. Even when she was sitting at the table with me, time seemed to be standing still. First, she logged on to the computer. Then, she had to find my records. After that, she checked and double checked the numbers on the piece of paper against what was on the screen. I squinted, to try to make out what they were, but to no avail. Finally, she opened the case, removed the glasses and put them on my face. In that moment, everything became intensely clear. “Oh, wow,” was the response both Gemma and I gave – but probably for rather different reasons. “How are they?” the assistant asked. “They make everything so bright.” I looked around the shop. From where I was sitting, I felt like I could see everything without effort: the prices, the notices – every tiny detail. It took another five or six minutes of adjusting the fit until we were ready to leave. Now that I could see properly, I had even been able to read my prescription on the computer screen: R -7.75 L -8.00. I don’t know whether Gemma had also seen it, or whether she was at the wrong angle, but now I knew. Whatever it was that had caused Gemma to say “wow”, I had to wait until we were back in the car to find out. “Well, what do you think of your little sister’s first pair of glasses?” I asked her. “I, er, well I er… Do you really want me to say?” “Go on…” “They’re incredibly thick, and they make your eyes look tiny. I love the frames on you – but those lenses! I’d got used to seeing you in my old glasses, but although yours are pretty much the same shape, the lenses are something else. Can I try them?” I wondered how long it would take. “Only if I can try yours.” “Done.” We swapped glasses. I already had a pretty good idea of what I would be able to see through Gemma’s soon-to-be-old glasses, but I needed them to see what mine looked like – at least on her. She was right. The frames sparkled because they were new, but it was the lenses which really caught the eye. They looked to be about a centimetre thick on the outside edge. “These are too strong for me,” Gemma said. “Your eyes are worse than mine – and I’ve had glasses for eight or nine years. Are you going to go blind?” “I hope not.” I gave Gemma her glasses back. Once we were back home, I had the opportunity to get a much closer look at my new glasses. I was shocked at how thick the lenses were. They weren’t quite as thick as my first estimate – somewhere between eight and nine millimetres. I did wonder if they would have been much different if I hadn’t said “yes” to the slight increase in strength, but it was too late now. The frames really did catch the light, and the fact that I wasn’t have to force my eyes to focus through the lenses was an added bonus. I tried to imagine how I was going to be greeted at school the next day. My friends knew I was getting new glasses, but I hadn’t let on to anyone that they would be my first real pair. My parents were fairly non-committal when they saw the new me. “Your glasses look nice, Nicole.” “They make you look so much more grown-up.” And that was the sum of it. Whether they were secretly shocked or not, they didn’t let on. My friends at school were rather less circumspect. I got all the comments I was expecting about what they looked like and how little others could see through them. At the end of the day, however, there was no getting away from the simple truth: “I need them.” It took me another three months to persuade my parents that I ought to be allowed to have contact lenses as well. I had to pretend that the whole process of inserting and removing the lenses was new to me, but when you’re feeling a bit nervous, it’s not that difficult to drop them while you’re trying to put them in. I was a little surprised when they only gave me one box, but as my prescription in them was the same for both eyes, it made sense. And I had to go back again two weeks later to check they fitted properly. It was also suggested that I have my glasses checked at the same time, as it would possibly save another visit later.
- - -
It has been just over two years since I was told I would probably need to start wearing glasses, and slightly less since I did. I have no idea how strong Gemma’s second pair of glasses was, that I had started out with, but I knew my own second prescription: R: -8.25 L:-8.50. And -7.50 for contact lenses. My turn has seemed to take a long time coming, but it was definitely worth the wait.
https://vision-and-spex.com/a-long-time-coming-but-worth-the-wait-t1973.html