I was 8 years old when I got my first pair of glasses. Looking back, I now realize that they were quite weak, compared to my second and third pair, but at the time I was just pleased with how much clearer these glasses made everything look. I used to enjoy taking them off and looking into the blur. Then I would place them on the end of my nose and slide them into place, amazed at the way they made everything look so clear and sharp. I suppose I needn’t have worn that first pair all the time, but I really liked wearing them, so I did. It didn’t take long before these first glasses no longer made everything as clear and sharp as they did at first. Soon things were fuzzy, even with the glasses on, and now everything was even fuzzier when I took them off. I told my mom, and I then got my second pair of glasses less than a year after I had gotten my original glasses. My mom died when I was 14. She wasn’t even sick; she just keeled over one day and then she was dead. I was told later that she had something called an aneurysm, which was a blood vessel in her head that was weak, and it ruptured and killed her. My dad and my mom had not married and had split before I was born. No one could find my dad, so I had to go to live in a foster home that was arranged for me by Children’s Aid. I didn’t like living in the foster home and I hated school. I was the chubby little girl with the thick glasses and the face full of acne, so I didn’t have any friends. Soon after mom died my glasses prescription had increased to -6D, and while this isn’t normally considered really strong, the cheap plastic lenses that children’s aid paid for were the regular thick ones instead of the thinned-out ones that other people wore. By the time I was 16 I had grown a bit taller, and I was no longer as chubby. My glasses prescription had increased to -7.50D and my now cheap lenses were even thicker. But I actually liked the looks of the thicker lenses and since I really needed my glasses to see well enough to even read without putting things at the end of my nose, I figured I had better get used to the fact that my glasses were the thickest ones of anyone in my whole school. That summer I had graduated from grade 10, and I got a job at a fast-food place. Now I had a little bit of money of my own, along with a bit more freedom. Since I had turned 14 and had gone into foster care, I had been using my clothing allowance to buy whatever clothing I needed at local thrift stores. When school went back that September I almost quit and went to work full time, but I realized that I needed at least a grade 12 education to even be able to apply for many of the jobs that were available, and I didn’t want to be working cash at a hamburger joint forever. I took some of my summer earnings and went shopping at my usual thrift stores for my back to school clothing. A couple of the stores had bins of old glasses and one store had an old sunglass rack that had lots of different glasses on it. I often tried some of the old glasses on, but even though the frames were cheap enough the lenses were generally too weak for me. One day there were a few new pairs in one of the bins. I took each pair out and tried them on. The weakest pair, which I could see through if I tried hard, were a pair of vintage cats eyed glasses with silver metal frames. It was possible for me to see through the lenses if I pulled my eyes back into my head, but I suspected they were probably something I could likely wear in the future. Another pair was what was known as drop temple frames, and I could tell that the lenses were even thicker and were a bit too strong for me right now. There were 3 more pairs of what would be called vintage glasses in the bin, and as I took each pair out, I could see how the lenses in each pair got thicker and thicker. This could possibly have been 10 years or more of the same persons old glasses. The sticker on each pair was $2.00 so these 5 pairs would cost me $10.00 if I bought all 5 pairs. I knew I shouldn’t do it, but I took my clothing purchases along with these 5 pairs of glasses to the cashier and paid for my purchases. Then I went back to the foster home and put my purchases in my dresser drawers. I shared the room with a younger girl, so I wasn’t even able to try wearing the weakest pair of glasses just yet. When she was downstairs helping to get dinner ready, I did take a closer look at the silver metal framed glasses, and it seemed to me that while they were stronger than my real glasses the lenses didn’t look to be any thicker. I felt that if I was able to wear them in private for a while, I might possibly be able to see well enough through them that I could wear them. But with my position as a cashier, I knew that for me to wear them at work I would have to be sure I could see well enough to not make any mistakes, because if I made a mistake on cash, it came out of my earnings, and I didn’t want that. The thoughts of wearing the stronger glasses occupied my mind. Since I was 16, I had a little bit of freedom, so that evening I placed the silver glasses in my pocket and told the lady who took care of us that I was going for a walk in the park. Once I was away from the house, I switched glasses. The silver framed ones were definitely stronger, and I had a hard time getting to the point where I felt comfortable walking around with them on. However, by the time I was ready to return to the house I felt that I could manage to wear them at school. As long as I was attending school, I could live at the foster home until I either left school or turned 18, whichever came first. I didn’t even mind sharing the room with the 12 year old girl, as she was quiet and didn’t bother me much. Lately though she had been asking me a lot of questions about my glasses and my eyesight. I wondered why this was, so I started watching her and I noticed that she was sitting much closer to the television set than she previously had sat. I had kept all of my old pairs of glasses. I had never known what the prescription of any of my first 3 pairs were, but I did know that my very first pair had been pretty weak, and they didn’t even last me a year before I needed a stronger prescription. That night, when Bailey came back up to our room after watching television, I had already taken out my second pair of glasses and I asked her if she wanted to try a pair of my old glasses to see if they helped her see a little bit better. She tried to deny that she needed glasses, but I told her that it sure looked to me as if she did. I also told her that her eyes wouldn’t get any better and it was smarter to wear glasses than it was to go around in a blur. Finally, she put them on and looked around a little before she told me that things looked a lot clearer, but they seemed to be pulling on her eyes. I told her that this feeling would go away after she wore them for a while, and that if she thought they helped she could try wearing them to school the next day. The following morning Bailey didn’t want to wear the glasses, but I finally convinced her that her classmates wouldn’t think any less of her if she wore glasses. She still thought that my old glasses were strong, but she didn’t deny that she could see a lot better wearing them than she could without. I had placed the vintage silver framed glasses in my backpack, and while I wanted to wear them, I knew that wearing glasses that were stronger than what I required would likely cause my prescription to increase. My -7.50D glasses were only a few months old and I thought I could still see reasonably well with them. I sat down in my seat for the second class of the day. I took my glasses off and when I was cleaning the lenses the one earpiece came off in my hand. The screw had fallen out, so I got down on my hands and knees to see if I could find it, but I couldn’t find it nor could a couple of other classmates who had better eyesight than me. I took the silver glasses out of my backpack and put them on. It was almost as if fate had made the decision for me whether to wear them or not. I struggled a little during that first class. I could see the board fairly well but close up work required a bit more effort than usual. I found that I could pull the glasses away from my eyes a little when I was reading and now everything was fine for the rest of the school day. That afternoon I walked home as usual, but I detoured slightly and stopped by the optical store where I had gotten my glasses. I switched glasses before I got there and sat there without any glasses while they put a new screw in free of charge. These glasses were only a few months old, as I had gotten them before I turned 16. Children’s Aid would no longer pay for my glasses because I had “aged out” of their care when I turned 16, and any change in my prescription would mean that I would then be paying for my own glasses. I knew what I was doing when I left the optical store and changed my glasses back to the vintage silver framed ones. Stronger lenses in front of my eyes would mean that my eyes would gradually become accustomed to the increased power, and my eyesight would never revert back. I had been fortunate over the last few years. I had been 8 when I got my first glasses and by age 16 my glasses were only -7.50D. One girl in my grade at school had gotten glasses when she was 13, and in only 3 years her prescription had gone up to almost -7D. And now I wanted to make my eyes worse by wearing glasses that were too strong. I couldn’t explain it, although I could sort of rationalize it by telling myself that my eyes would likely only get worse anyway. But the real reason was that I liked the looks of glasses that had strong lenses. I liked taking my glasses off and watching the world disappear into a fuzzy blur as the lenses moved away from my eyes. When I got to the house Mildred, the lady who owned and ran the foster house was in the kitchen. She commented on my glasses, and I merely told her I had broken my other ones and these glasses were my cheapest option. She didn’t ask any more questions as she knew that my glasses were no longer paid for out of her house budget. Bailey came down to the kitchen from our room and I noticed that she was still wearing the glasses I had given her, so I asked her how her day had gone with her wearing my old glasses. She was quite pleased that she could now see so much better than before, and I could tell that Mildred was also pleased that glasses for Bailey would not have to come out of her house budget, Mildred didn’t say a word about the fact that wearing the wrong glasses might hurt Bailey’s eyes like a real mother would have. Bailey asked where I had gotten the silver framed glasses and I lied and told her I had broken my glasses and the optical store had fixed them but that I had found this pair that I could wear as a spare pair that I bought at the thrift store. Now I could wear these glasses for as long as I wanted to with very few questions. I did a lot of reading about eyes and various vision problems. What I discovered was that if a person was naturally nearsighted like I was, wearing stronger lenses than required would cause your ciliary muscles to increase the plus power of your inner lens. If you did this long enough, first you would develop pseudo myopia. If you kept this up the pseudo myopia would likely cause your eyeball to elongate, turning the pseudo myopia into axial myopia and your eyeball would actually grow longer from front to back. If the amount of over correction you wore was -3D generally within 90 days your prescription would have increased by roughly -1D. Then over the next year you would likely increase your own prescription by another -1.50D. The final -0.50D might never become real myopia unless you did a lot of near point work, and the excessive near point work would likely have caused your eyes to become more myopic anyway. I had no way of knowing what the prescription was in the glasses I was wearing. Nor did I know what the prescriptions were in the other 4 pairs I had bought. I did know that after about 6 months of wearing the first pair I could put on the drop temple pair and it didn’t take much effort to see clearly while wearing them. I felt I could even wear them to work if I had to. Now, when I was working cash, I would take a better look at any of the customers that came in and I found I was drawn to the ones who wore glasses. That’s when I really decided that I was drawn to the people who wore the thicker looking glasses. They seemed special to me, and I knew I wanted to wear glasses strong enough that people would stare at me the same way I stared at them. But I didn’t have the courage yet to start wearing the next pair.
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