I haven’t posted here for a while due to a major project taking up all of my time. That’s a shame, as I love writing these stories. How about a real life one for a change.
I had mentioned my wife before, who has recently had an eye test and is L -6.50, R -6.25. She wears varifocals, and has a separate pair of glasses for reading in bed L -3.25, R -3.00 so she doesn’t damage her good ones when falling asleep! She knows of my fascination with glasses, and has always dismissed any co-operation on her part saying that she only regards them as a means of being able to see. However, I have now persuaded her to tell her own story in her own words, so here it is.
I got my first glasses at age 9. I knew before then that there was something wrong with my eyesight as I could never read the blackboard at school like the other kids, and I had to sit in the front row. Nobody else in my class wore glasses, and I was sure I wasn’t going to be the first. I ended up being the first! We got an eye test at school, and the nurse sent me home with a note for my parents to take me to an optician for glasses. I was devastated, and swore I’d never ever wear them. When I got them, they were the standard National Health Service flesh coloured plastic frames with wire hooks to go over your ears, and when I got home I first tried them on looking out my bedroom window. I was amazed at the difference. Everything was razor sharp. I sat there for ages looking at the trees, the street, people walking by, and reading the car registration numbers which I was never able to do before.
I went downstairs to watch my favourite TV programme, and sat as usual right in front of the TV set on a stool. My mother told me to put on my new glasses and sit on the sofa. I did so, and was amazed that I could see the screen clearly. I told her I was only going to wear them for watching TV. She said no, you’re taking them to school with you tomorrow.
I took them in my bag to school the next day, but left them there and still struggled to see the board. Also I was reading and writing with my nose almost against the book! The teacher picked up on this and asked me if I had got glasses. I could never lie - I was quite a timid little thing! I said I had new glasses in my bag. Then she told me to get them out and put them on, and she made a big announcement to the class that I had new glasses and explained that it was so I could read the board. I put them on and felt the eyes of the whole class burning into my back. Then she told me to sit up the back if I wanted to. This was better - I was much less noticeable, and I could read the board perfectly.
After that first day, for years I only wore my glasses at school, and for watching TV at home. I never wore them for reading, and still had my nose almost touching the book.
In my teens, I noticed things getting worse - a whole lot worse by the time I was 16 or 17, I can’t remember which. I got my first job in an office at 16, and travelled to work by bus. There was no way I could read the numbers on the buses, and I kept my glasses in my pocket so I could quickly put them on when needed. I started going to clubs with a friend from work, and we always made sure we had the 2 essentials in our handbags - our glasses and our cigarettes (everybody smoked then - it was cool! I don’t smoke now). When boys started taking an interest in me and chatting me up, I couldn’t even see what they looked like until they were close up! But I still resisted wearing my glasses as I thought boys never made passes at girls who wore glasses! I kept asking my girlfriend if they were nice before I would speak to them. This went on until I was 19, and at an eye test the optician said that I would now have to wear my glasses full time. I was absolutely devastated. It was the end of my world! I chose a fashionable cat’s eye style in black plastic, and I felt so self conscious wearing them all the time. But I could see everything!
When I was 21, I still hated wearing them, so my mother bought me hard contact lenses - a most original 21st birthday present, which were still in their infancy and not yet common. I practiced putting them in and out at the optician’s for a week, and became quite expert at it. Life was great again.
Moving on a lot, I found in my 40s that I was having sight problems again. this time it was reading - my arms weren’t long enough! Back to the optician and he prescribed reading glasses to be worn over the contacts. By now I just accepted that glasses and me were going to be together one way or the other for the rest of my life. I wore these round my neck on a cord as I needed them all the time, then disaster struck.
One morning I had a searing pain in my eye after putting my contacts in. It was horrendous, and I was in total panic. I had never felt such awful pain. My husband helped me take the lens out, and he found a piece of it had broken off, and the sharp edge had scored my cornea. I got an emergency appointment and was given some medication and told I wouldn’t be able to wear contacts for at least 4 weeks, maybe more, maybe never. This was the deciding factor - new glasses for full time wear.
I’ve never looked back, and now I love my glasses - they are part of me. I have an ordinary pair of varifocals - I think some people call them progressives - and I also have a pair that go dark in the sun which I love. I’ve also got a pair of reading ones to use in bed as I always fall asleep with them on. I would never go back to contacts now - what a hassle!
Well, that’s my little story - ordinary and boring. I don’t know what all the interest is in glasses. They are just a means for me to be able to see. Next we’ll be seeing sites about people with hearing aids or crutches! Silly silly!
I will see if I can post pictures of my glasses here - my main ones and my reading ones.
Thank you for reading.
……….and thank you for writing my dear