I first starting wearing glasses when I was seven years old. My mother wore glasses, so she made sure that she had our eyes checked every year, from the age of four upwards. By “we”, I mean me, and my younger brother, James. I’d just about reached the point where I had noticed that my mother wore glasses and, as young girls often do, I wanted to be like her. Nevertheless, we were both surprised when we were told that I was becoming short-sighted, and would need to get my first pair of glasses, which I would need to wear all the time. Secretly, I was delighted. I was just about to start Junior School (it’s now called year 3), and I would be one of only three or four glasses-wearers of my age. I had been told that it was important that I wear them all the time – especially as it was less likely I would sit on them and break them that way. In point of fact, they made me feel much more grown-up, as lots of adults wore glasses, but not many children did. However, I was a little surprised that, when I tried my mum’s glasses on, I wasn’t able to see very well with them. She kindly explained that glasses came in all sorts of different strengths, and that mine would be much weaker than hers. She hoped I would never need to wear glasses anywhere near as strong as hers, but, as she was 12 when she got her first pair, it might happen one day. My glasses made very little difference to how well I could see, but I wore them because I wanted to, rather than because I had been told I needed them. I was very possessive of them, and although a few of my classmates asked if they could try them, I didn’t let them, as I didn’t want them to get broken. Shortly before the start of Year Four, James and I found ourselves back at the optician’s. He still had perfect vision (I did when I was six), but I was surprised when I was told that I needed new glasses – and that my new ones would be twice as strong as the old ones. I started to protest that I didn’t want them, and that I had been good and worn the old pair every day since I first got them, but the optician very patiently explained that I needed them because I was growing up – and that I would probably need to get new glasses every time I got my eyes tested for the next few years. Choosing the right frame seemed to take ages. The children’s frames were a little too small for my face, although the teenagers’ ones were a little on the large side. In the end, we found a frame that looked reasonable, and ordered that. When I started to wear the glasses, I got a number of comments about the fact that they were new. I could tell that they made things in the distance a little easier to see, and I probably made more of a play on how much stronger they were than my old pair than was absolutely necessary, but once again, they made me feel special. And once again, I refused to let anyone else try them. I even borrowed my mum’s old glasses on one occasion – but I still couldn’t see much with them. In fact, it was only after I had had my third pair of glasses for about six months that I finally gave in and allowed a friend called Melissa to try them on. She had just started to wear glasses for seeing the board, and I was as keen to see what it was like to wear her glasses as she was mine. In one way I was jealous that her glasses were brand new and mine weren’t, but it was clear to both of us that my lenses were stronger than hers. To me, hers were a little better than no glasses at all, whereas she was able to slightly more through my glasses than the rest of our friends were. I guess I felt slightly smug that I had something that no-one else could copy, although I suppose I would have preferred for it to be a special skill, rather than a special need. It did get me wondering how well I would cope without glasses, so I tried it after lunch. I gave up halfway through the afternoon, as my struggle to see clearly appeared to be linked to the beginnings of the headache I could feel, and by the time it came to going home, my headache had all but gone. I was not surprised when I was prescribed a slightly stronger pair of glasses just before the start of my final year in Primary School. I had already worked out I needed them when I found I could see a bit better if I wore my first pair of glasses underneath the present ones. I also noticed that my face appeared a little smaller through the lenses. I rapidly reached the conclusion that this meant that others could see that mine were not fake glasses. I also realised that I could probably still cope around the house without them, but seeing any details at more than a few feet was nigh-on impossible. My friends at school immediately spotted that I had new glasses – and although I let some of them try them on, none of them could see very well with them. By the end of the year, there were five of us who wore glasses. One boy, Brian, had worn his since virtually the day he was born. I had never seen him without them, even at kindergarten. Melissa got new glasses part of the way through the year. To me, they seemed only one step better than plain glass, but as I knew how little I could see through my old glasses (unless I wore two pairs together), I accepted that she, also, needed them. We were joined by John and Callie – twins from just down the road from my house. Neither of them wore their glasses much; even Melissa thought Callie’s glasses were weak, and if they hadn’t come with a proper case, we might even have concluded that they were just for show. When we reached Secondary School, I could tell that I no longer had the strongest glasses in our year group. There were several boys and girls from other local schools whose glasses looked at least as strong as, if not stronger than, my latest pair. Melissa came to school in her glasses on day one; they were the same pair she had got just before Easter, but she explained that they were part of her new uniform, and that if I could wear my glasses all the time, so could she. During the course of the year, one or two others in my various classes started to wear specs, and in due course, Melissa, too, got a new pair, which she proudly announced, were a minus two. I felt that it ought to mean something to me, but it didn’t. When I tried them on, they certainly improved what I could see, but they were still definitely weaker than my glasses. If Melissa could tell everyone that she was a “minus two”, I felt sure I could beat that score. By the start of July, I knew that I, too, needed stronger glasses. I thought about saying something to my mum, but never quite got around to doing so, and so, it was mid-August, as usual, when I found myself back in the large black chair which was becoming so familiar to me. My previous appointments had always resulted in “a slight change” in prescription, so I was almost waiting to hear those words once again as we reached the end of the eye test. However, on this occasion I was told there had been “quite a significant change” and that it would probably be a good idea for me to come back in six months instead of a year. As much of the conversation was between the optician and my mum, I didn’t get the chance to ask how strong my glasses would be. When I picked them up, I couldn’t help but notice that the lenses were starting to stick out of the back of the frames, and that there was significantly more cut-in behind the lenses than there had been with any of my previous pairs, Also, I couldn’t believe how much more clearly I could see. I also discovered that, for the first time, I really needed to wear them in order to be able to read books at a sensible distance from my face. Melissa thought I was teasing her when I said I didn’t know how strong my glasses had become, but she could certainly tell that they were a lot stronger than hers. She did ask whether they had made a mistake with the lenses, but I knew perfectly well that they hadn’t. To prove it, I had her read the furthest thing that she could, and then read the next sign behind it. I did get a number of comments about the thickness of the lenses, and the boy who tried calling me “six eyes” got a real tongue-lashing but, if I had to admit it, I secretly quite enjoyed the attention, and, since I now had to go back every six months, I got more of it each time I went. It wasn’t just my eyes which were changing rapidly. My body was doing likewise, as I went from being a rather spindly girl to a modestly-endowed teenager. I had to give plenty of thought to my glasses frames as well as my style of dress, as I didn’t want to be labelled a nerd. School uniform helped to a certain extent, as we all had to wear the same things, so as long as my frames had a bit of colour in them, I was pretty safe. One way to avoid looking like a nerd was not to wear glasses at all, so when it came around to getting my eyes tested before going back to school at the age of 14, I asked whether I could get contact lenses. I had worn glasses half my life, and there was always the hope that with lenses, my eyes would stop changing quite so rapidly. Fortunately, my eyes were perfectly healthy, and I went back to school in September with nothing between me and the rest of the World, for the first time in seven years. In an effort to keep the cost down, my parents had agreed to get me twenty lenses per month. The optician felt this was a great idea, as it meant that I had to give my eyes a rest from time to time. If I chose to wear my lenses at the weekend, it would mean I had to wear my glasses to school – and I was even less keen for this to happen, as the lenses were even thicker than they had been before. Also, I was told that my prescription had now passed my mother’s, so when I tried her glasses on, everything seemed very clear, although she complained than mine were a little too strong for her. If my eyes had responded at that point to the contact lenses by not changing so quickly, I will never know. On the plus side, I did manage to avoid getting another new pair of glasses six months later, but the numbers on the contact lenses did increase from -6.50 to -7.00. I didn’t mind this so much, as it was only my mum and I who knew that anything had changed. It wasn’t a great surprise, next time, to see those numbers change again to -7.50, and to be told I had to get new glasses. Once again, my eyes were given a clean bill of health, and I was told that I didn’t need to be seen again for a year. The lenses in those glasses were nearly a centimetre thick, so I did my best to avoid going out in them. Fortunately, with the Summer holidays, I had been able to build up a small surplus of lenses, so the only people who ever saw me wearing them were friends who came to visit me at home, and once or twice when I went to sleepovers at other people’s houses. With this in mind, when it came to getting my next glasses, I asked whether the lenses could be made a bit thinner, without the cost of going for high-index lenses. I was told that there were three things to consider: go for a smaller frame, go for a plastic frame and have a plano base-curve. I duly selected a smaller, plastic frame, but I was still horrified when I saw the result. The lenses were just as thick as they had been on my previous pair, but now they looked like chunks of ice. I did query whether they had done everything possible to make them thinner, but was told that this was as thin as they could make them, as my eyes had changed quite a lot in the previous year. With new glasses, and new contact lenses came a dilemma. I was still receiving twenty pairs of -8.50 contacts to wear every month, but once they ran out, I still had two whole boxes of the -7.50 contacts to use up. Should I go around in a bit of a blur in the old lenses, or wear the new ones now, and face up to an even greater blur when they ran out, as my eyes had got a little worse in the meantime? In the end, I decided that I had to wear the stronger lenses to school, so that I could see properly, and kept the weaker ones for when I went out at the weekend. As a result, I still had half a box left of both powers when I was given an increase to -9.00 the following year, which only made the dilemma worse. By this time, I was having to give some serious thought to my future plans. I wasn’t stupid, but university was not the right option for me, so I enrolled in a one-year secretarial course at the local college. It seemed like a good way to learn new skills, without committing myself to anything long-term. After completing it, I found myself applying for various office jobs, until I finally settled on one where I seemed to fit in quite well. The next few years taught me a number of things. The first was that office work wasn’t particularly kind to my eyes, and that prescription changes were a fairly common occurrence. The second was that my glasses and my contacts were not the same strength. The third was that there seemed to be three types of men: the shallow ones, who dropped me the moment I showed up to a date wearing my thick glasses; the creepy ones, who seemed more interested in my glasses than they were in me, and the sensible ones, who were not bothered by my choice of eyewear when we were out on dates. Eventually, things became serious between me and Darius, and in due course, we were married and settled down to life together. In time, we had two children: Amy was a couple of years older than Ricky. Fortunately, my eyes stabilised, and I was able to get new glasses because I wanted them, rather than because changes in prescription meant that I needed them. I have since learned that I was a little fortunate in this, as it is not unheard of for pregnancy to have an effect on a woman’s eyesight. Amy and Ricky must have inherited more of their father’s genes than they did mine, at least as far as their eyesight was concerned. Amy was fourteen when she failed an annual sight test, but it wasn’t until she left school that she started to wear her glasses all the time. Ricky did even better, and he managed to reach his seventeenth birthday, and the start of his driving lessons, before he was advised to get his eyes tested in order to pass the vision part of the driving test. I’m not sure whether my eyes were improving or not. I gave up on wearing contacts when I turned 40. I didn’t have a particular reason for wearing them, and the money saved came in useful for all sorts of other things. By that time, my distance prescription had started to come down, by a quarter or a half dioptre every couple of years, but when I turned 45, I had to admit defeat and start wearing varifocals as well, to help me with seeing things up close. -14.50 does not allow you to see anything comfortably, at any distance, and either my arm was too short, or my nose was too long, to allow me to read in comfort with a standard pair of glasses. Ten years ago, I was told I had started to develop cataracts. I knew something was not quite right, as things were starting to look hazy, especially in the distance. Part of this was solved by starting to reverse the downward trend in my distance prescription, but when I asked, I was told that surgery was only performed when it became necessary; although it was considered a routine operation, it was still an operation, and there were, therefore, risks attached. While the majority of the issues could be solved by slightly more frequent changes in my glasses’ prescription, that was the way they were to be managed. I have just returned from the specialist. They will be operating on my eyes in two months’ time. Left eye first, and then, about a month later, my right eye. I’ve got to go back in a couple of weeks to discuss what prescription I would like after the operation. Should I go for perfect distance vision, and accept that I will always need to have a pair of reading glasses with me? Do I opt to be left slightly short-sighted, so that I still need glasses to see clearly in the distance, but be able to take them off to read? Do I ask them to give me a prescription close to what I have been used to for the whole of my adult life – or do I ask for something different, something somewhere in between? Decisions, decisions…