I am a close friend to Astrid since a couple of months, we got to know each other through our jobs and managed a few projects together. Last weekend we were out hiking in the mountains and having delicious days together out in nature. One Evening we spent in a mountain cabin, where we were on our own and planned to stay overnight after having dinner in the late sun, Astrid took off her sunglasses and changed to normal glasses. On this occasion I asked her, how and when she started to wear glasses. She was in an easy mood and answered: ”Well, when I was twelve years old, I decided to wear glasses and started wearing them.” I thought about that for a while and asked" “Did ya really say, you decided to wear glasses?” “It’s a long story.” she answered, ”I don’t want to bore you with it, just forget it.” But I was puzzled by her answer and begged hard to get the story. “OK, but one condition is, that you tell nobody about it, can you promise me?” Well I promised and in this written story I changed names, so nobody finds out about her idendity. “When I was a young girl I lived with my family in a small town. Bertha was my best friend from kindergarden and I spent lots of time with her. Many times I visited her and her family and we had good fun together. Her mother was maybe the most beautiful lady in our town, always perfectly dressed and she had to wear strong glasses. I knew from Bertha that her shortsightedness was increasing since years and she needed stronger glasses every year." “Bertha showed me one afternoon, when we were on our own in her family’s house, a drawer where her mother collected her old glasses. Just for fun we tried some of them and started to play rolegames with glasses on. We played: “Oh my god I am half blind without my glasses where have I put them?”, put on dresses of Bertha’s mother and tried to use her makeup and pretend to be real women. We repeated that quite often, when being on our own. When Bertha’s mother once saw us doing that, she reacted very tolerant saying: “Oh, the little girls want to be grown ups.” She asked us not to hurt ourselves while being impaired with her old glasses and left us by ourselves. Though seeing very blurry with the glasses I always enjoyed this pretending to be a glasses-wearing lady. In a strange way it felt exciting and thrilling.” “When reaching the age of twelve years, my dad got a very good paid job in a big city, one of the biggest in our country, far north from our small town. This meant to move 500 miles away from my beloved small town with my friends and relatives. That was quite sad. The day before we travelled away I made a round to say good bye to everyone. When coming to Bertha’s house I stayed a little longer, because this was the hardest. I sat there long with Berthas Mom, Dad and sister and eveerybody was sad, as this was the end of a good time together. The worst for me was: No more playing with Bertha, maybe we would not see each other for years, maybe never again. Before finaly leaving, Bertha asked me to wait a moment and came with a little parcel that she handed me: “Something to remember our good times she said, don’t open it before you arrive and keep it as a secret.” I wondered, what it might be and was longing to find out when we arrived in our new home next day. I locked myself in the toilette and opened the parcel. It was a square cartboardbox filled with soft tissue and contained… a familiar looking glasses case. My heart was pounding when I opened it, it contained my favorite “playing games”- the glasses from Berthas mothers collection. I remember like today, dark shiny oval plastic rims with silver hinges and glistening lenses like jewels. I was excited and in the same moment afraid, my parents could see my present. So I waited till nobody was outside the toilet before going to my room and hiding my new belongings. Next day my parents had loads of things to do, to get our new home running and I asked, if I could in the meantime take a look around in our town. They first hesitated, but then said, ok, you are a big and clever girl here’s some money and be back before it gets dark. Without really thinking about it I took “my” glasses with me and as soon as I was far enough away from our house I put them on. I always had wished to try a walk outside with glasses on since I had made my first expieriences playing with Bertha. Going with the glasses was not easy, it was hard to find my way, because the sight through the lenses was so twisted and blurry, I had moments of stumbling and almost falling, but after some time, I kind of got a bit used to the restriction the poor vision caused, but it was hard. When I passed a little park, I saw something like a bench and sat down there. I could have just make an end to my struggle and take the glasses off I thought to myself, but that would be a defeat and frustration. So, I decided to sit for a while and calm myself down a bit. I watched the scene around me, the people walking by, the traffic on the street. It was exciting and strange together. I thought: What am I doing? I could see much better without the glasses, why am I so eager to keep them on? The answer was, I hoped my eyes would learn to see through these lenses. Bertha had once mentioned that she was sure if one has glasses long enough in front of his eyes, his vision would adapt to them, because he needed to see and get orientation. I sat there for more than an hour trying to focus my eyes. And then it happened: for a couple of seconds the picture got almost clear. But that wasn’t stable. I kept on trying hard. I didn’t really know what exactly I was trying, it was like catching fish with your hands - and the moments of clearer view - not at all as good as I was used to see without glasses - got longer compared to the drift into blurriness. I continued to walk and it got better step by step. After two hours of walking through the streets my sight was stable and acceptable, far from my usual perfect sight with bare eyes, but good enough to get orientation, see traffic lights, other people and cars. But seeing with this imperfect sight through my glasses caused more problems. I needed more turns of the head to find my way and the rather good view was only through the center of the lenses. But I was excited and arroused by my success in adapting to the powerful lenses and was encouraged to keep my glasses on. As if I had learned how to ride a bicycle or a horse, but not being sure and safe on it yet. I passed a cinema, where the matinee would begin in a couple of minutes and decided to go in. I bought a ticket and took a seat. The film was fascinating and full of magic pictures and scenes. It was about the time of the american civil war. It lasted for 2 and a half hours. When the lights went on I realised that a young girl had taken the seat beside me. I was puzzled because the cinema wasn’t very full and there would have been plenty of space. The girl noticed my amazement and apologized saying that she came in on her own and wanted somebody nearby in the dark of the screening room. I said to her that I was charmed by that, because she seemed a little older than me. So we came into talking and Caren - that was her name - invited me to have a drink together. We went to a café nearby. On the way there I had the impression that my ability to see well through the glasses had improved, it felt much easier than before the film. Maybe it was because I had to focus harder in the dim cinema and now had lots of bright light. We sat and talked about our lives, our favourite films, books, music and so on. Caren was like me new in town. Her parents had moved there 3 weeks ago and she was bored, because she had no friends in the new town. After a while she asked how old I was. I told her and she was surprised. She had thought me to be her age, 15. I wasn’t developed much as a women by that time, but she was, so I asked her what made her think so. She looked at me and thought about it. “Its your glasses Astrid, they are not like a young girls glasses, they look like the glasses of a grownup woman and they look strong, so this makes you more mature.” I blushed, this on one hand was a really beautiful compliment, but on the other hand I felt embarrassed because I kind of lied to my new friend by pretending to be a habitual or continuos glasses wearing girl. Who was I supposed to be? The picture Caren had from me, or the 12 year old girl, that just had moved into a big town. What if she saw me without these glasses, if she knew, that I was just a kid playing with someone else’s glasses, that I didn’t really need. I had a strong longing to see myself with these glasses and went to the toilet. I hadn’t seen me before, because my vision through the glasses always had been so bad, but now I was able to see at least fairly well. I was glad there was nobody else in the toilets, so I was able to stand there and look at my picture in the mirror. Wow Caren was right, the glasses made me look very mature, if I would use some makeup like Caren did, it would be even better. Turning my head from left to right and up and down I saw rings of reflection in the corner of the lenses and a cutout in my face behind the lenses, effects that I remembered from Bertha’s mom and yes my eyes seemed to be a bit smaller behind the glasses. I stood there watching for at least 10 minutes, I was fascinated by what I saw. Coming back Caren asked where I stayed that long, I answered, that I was constipated after the long journey. After leaving the café we walked on together going into shops and warehouses just for fun and then deciding to go see the sunset over the big river that runs through my new hometown. By then I had the glasses on for more than 9 hours, I realised that my eyes felt hot and sore, and I had a little headache. I was sure, that beeing on my own, I would have taken them off at that point. But I had company and my company was sure, I wear glasses since years and would be blind without them. And Caren was a very nice person. The fact that she accepted a much younger girl as her company flattered me. I had a growing wish, to become friends with her. But that would force me to wear my glasses whenever we saw each other. We enjoyed a beautiful sunset on the shore of the river and then splitted to go home. Caren said, that she enjoyed the day with me and that she would love to meet me again: ”What about tomorrow, we still have schoolholidays for 4 weeks, what about going to an outdoorpool with some food and drinks?“ We made an appointment for next day. Going home I used the tube. My eyes were tired and felt sore. But I enjoyed to wear my glasses even more than in the morning. After Carens compliment I felt so confident as a glasses wearing person, I realised, that I caught the attention of many people. Was that because of my strong glasses? It felt exciting. Before entering the house I took the glasses off and stored them away. I was shocked about my vision without glasses. It was a completely out of focus, like a painting from that’s just raw forms and colours, I hardly recognized my mom that opened the door. She asked how my day had been, I told her where I had been and that I met Caren. The blur slowly vanished and my vision got back to normal. Puh. After dinner I quickly went to my room. I thought about the fact that Bertha had donated me her mothers glasses and decided to write a letter and thank her for it and tell her what a surprise and joy it was for me. I told her about my day out with the glasses and that her theory of getting used to strong glasses by wearing them long enough seemed to be true. After that I fell asleep like a stone and woke up early. I tried to get clear what to do now. My parents would be shocked if they found that I was wearing strong prescription glasses just for fun and joy. Caren was not such a close friend that I could tell her the truth. It was a mess. And at the same moment I felt a strong wish to put the glasses on and feel their power on my eyes. After breakfast I packed my bathing things, some drinks and food and said goodbye to my parents. Like being hungry for them I longed to put my glasses on and did so just 50 yards away from my parents house. Passing a mailbox I put the letter to Bertha in it. Like the day before my sight through the lenses was twisted and blury in the beginning, but after a couple of minutes I felt my eyes getting tense and step by step things got clearer. It was exhilerating to feel the power of the glasses on my eyes. I met Caren at the entrance of the outdoor bathing place, we paid and went in. After putting on our bathing suits we looked for a nice shady place near the bassin to put our towels and other stuff. The whole time we kept on talking and giggling, I was more aware of my new friend than of the glasses. We entered the bassin to do some swimming. I am a very good swimmer and usualy like to crawl, but with the glasses on I was too afraid to loose them. So I did breastswimming with headup, while Caren swam like a dolphin. My glasses got water on them and I made my first experience with the phenomen of wet glasses. After getting out of the water I had drops of water on the glasses, funny to see well but disturbed by little smears caused by the watereffect. I had to dry and clean them with the cleaning cloth out of the glasses case. Lying under the shady tree and watching the scenes around I realised, that my vision in the far seemed perfect and I was surprised that I got used to the fact that I needed more moves of my head for orientation. I felt now very content and happy wearing glasses. After four hours we left the bath and went downtown to go looking through shops. After going through bookshops - I still had troubles to read with the glasses - clothingshops, shoeshops and so on we passed an opticians shop. We both watched the exhibition of glasses and dicussed, which one would look nice on us. We didn’t realize, that one of the employees of the shop, a woman of about 30 years, stood in the door since a while, until she said “Sorry to approach you two, but I watched you from inside and I saw that your – she looked at me- glasses sit slightly crooked, may I help you and put them into order?“ I blushed like beeing caught by doing something illegal and stuttered: “Ok, but how much does that cost?” “Nothing, it’s a service from our house.” So we got in, I had to sit on a small table in front of the employee and she checked the fit of my glasses: “Well through growing your glasses got out of their best fitting.“ She took them off my nose a couple of times changed the location of the pads, heated the arms and bended them in different directions. In the end she seemed to be satisfied with her efforts and asked me to look in the mirror if it was ok. I was surprised, the glasses were seated much better than before. “Move your head from left to right fast.” I did so, the glasses were sitting perfect, they looked much better than before in my face and now really felt like being made for me. “Wow, thank you very much, I hadn’t realized, that I needed that, its really much better.” I said. The optican smiled and said to me: ”If a young personn has to wear such strong glasses, I think it needs perfect fitting at the least. Do you know, how strong your glasses are?” “No, I never cared for the numbers.” I replied. She asked: “Shall I find out for you, it just takes a minute?” So I gave her the glasses - everything was blury as I experienced before after taking them off - and she went in the back of the shop. It felt strange to sit there and to have the feeling of really needing my glasses so bad. After two minutes she came back, handed me back my glasses, witch I put on and felt reliefed to see clear again ”Ok, its -8.25 right and - 7.75 left, I wrote it here on this little card so you can keep it. I hope your myopia doesn’t increase, that’s quite a strong myopia you have in your age.” I thanked her very much and we left. I was in deep thoughts about the information I just had received. I had no idea till then what diopers and myopia meant and I was a little shocked, that my glasses are supposed to be outstandingly strong. So, after we split and I went on my way home, I searched for a library on my way and looked there for some books about myopia and optics. Sitting there in the reading place, I had to concentrate very hard to decipher the letters in the book. My eyes felt sore again while reading, the tensness on my eyes was almost painful. But after some time I was able to read fluently and what I found out was shocking: of all glasses wearing myops it was only about 1.5 percents that have to wear glasses as strong as mine or stronger. I left the library and walked home through the evening, my eyes felt more relaxed now, I saw perfect with the glasses on, after the fitting of the optician they felt like being part of me. My feelings were confused, I felt good with my glasses, but in the same moment I had the impression to do something very silly by wearing them. Coming closer to our house I took the glasses off and stored them away. It had already become dark. My god I felt half blind now, the world before my eyes was a complete blur, it was hard to find my way and to finally put the key into the door. I had to get close to the keyhole with my eyes to do this. Seeing closeup was ok, but just for a couple of centimeters. Through dinner and even afterwards when coming back to my room, my vision was impaired. I was just thinking if I should put my glasses back on in the quiet of my room to see better, when my dad knocked and said: “Phone for You.” It was Caren and she told me, that her aunt would come next day and that she wanted to go with her on a trip to a little house at the sea for a couple of days. They both would be glad, if I would join in. I thanked for the invitation, but said, that I needed to ask my parents first and that I would call back. My parents would not be such a problem, but I was anxious to join them, because this would mean 5 days with glasses from morning to evening. After putting the phone back to its place, I wanted to go quick back to my room, but my mom encountered and asked about the phone call and so I had to tell her about Carens offer. ”Great. You have a new friend and you can have a good time with her. I wish you lots of fun on that trip.” So there seemed to be no way back. Two days later - my vision was thank god perfect without glasses again and I refused the longing to put them on again before leaving with Caren and her aunt - I made appointments to meet them at Caren’s house and went there by tube. I had my glasses - I really had internalized in the meantime that these were “my glasses” - on from the moment I left our house. As if they had waited for them my eyes started adapting briskly to their power, it took less than 10 minutes and I was the perect seeing and od looking glasses wearing girl like two days before. For the next 5 days I gave no thought to my concerns about the health of my eyes. I was now Astrid, the twelve year old lady, that wears her strong glasses with pride and selfconciousness. Caren’s aunt was such a nice person, we had great days in the house at the sea, I got a little sunburned and was happy to live this part of my lifetime. My eyes adapted so perfect, that I was even able to read very small letters. Caren and her aunt wanted to bring me to the door of our house, but I insisted, that I wanted to go by tube and wanted to have a stopover at the library. After having worn my glasses for almost a week constantly, it took a whole day and two nights until my vision was back to normal without the glasses. I decided to make no more appointments with Caren, I was so afraid I could become permanently myopic and my parents would find out what I had done. I stored the glasses away and refused all impulses to put them on. Coming home I found a letter from Bertha. She wrote to me, that she missed me so much through summerholiday she had lots of boring days and with my writing that it is possible to adapt to strong glasses she had given it a try the day that my letter had reached her. Like me she had one of her mothers filed glasses on for a whole day. After 6 hours of wearing she was seeing quite good and a she planned to go to a holiday camp as an aid for the supervisers. She planed to wear glasses full time for the three weeks in this camp. She too started addicted to the optical power. So, I had company in what I was doing. I wrote her back and described what had happened to me and about my remorses. 3 days before school started Caren called me, she was a bit sad, that we never managed to meet in the meantime. She asked on which school I would go and I got the letter that my mom had given me from the school I would go to and told her. What a surprise: we would go to the same school in different classes, but had many chances to meet in the pauses. I was shocked. That meant I had to wear my glasses in school. One part of me was glad and excited another was very concerned. The weekend before school started a letter from Bertha arrived, she wrote, that she had her moms glasses on for 3 weeks constantly on her holiday camp and coming back was unable to get clear vision back without them and that she told her mother and now had a prescription for -6 glasses. About my remorses, she wrote, that she felt the same, but in the same moment was longing hard to wear her glasses and even planned to get stronger prescriptions. So. on my first day in the new school - I had to convince my mom that I am too old to be brought to schoool from my mom on the first day - I got my glasses out of its hide and put them on after leaving the house. To my surprise, my eyes adapted within seconds, as if they knew the power so good, there was the well-known tension on my eyeballs that faded after half an hour and I arrived as Astrid the big girl with the beautiful and spectacular strong glasses at school. I never in my life before had gotten such a load of secretly looks by pupils and even teachers than on these first days at school, I felt highly attractive. After one month of leaving the house without glasses, putting them on on the next corner, wearing them for hours at school and taking them off before reaching our house, or like on some days, when both my parents came home late, I kept them on at home till they came, my eyes seemed to protest against the permanent change and day by day the blur would last longer. Then they refused to get back to completely seeing normal at all. One weekend I woke up in the morning and a slight blur stayed for the rest of the day and the next day as well. After another 4 weeks the blur after taking the glasses off was absolute constant I knew, I was now myopic. I didn’t really mind it, well it felt ok for me , but it was such a problem to spent time with my parents without glasses. One evening when watching TV together, my mom looked at me and asked whats wrong with your eyes, you seem to be unable to follow the show? I broke in tears and confessed to her, that since our move to the big town my eyesight got bad and worsened constantly and that I was having problems to see well and that even in school this caused problems. Next day mom made an appointment with an optician in Town. As she was unable because of her job to join me, she gave me money and wished good luck. I walked to the optician my mom had choosen after school, took of my glasses and stored them away before reaching the shop. I had to wait a little bit and sat there with in a blur. The optician, an older lady checked my eyes and let me read letters projected on the wall. I was unable to see a thing, except the biggest letters. Then I had to put on a big frame in which she changed glasses until my vision was good. The optician, she herself had strong glasses on, shook her head many times. “I cant remember to ever have seen somebody with such strong myopia that doesn’t wear glasses since years.” I had exactly the same diopers as measured before in the shop with Caren. I choosed an oval frame with black rims and grey arms. I had to wait two hours until my glasses were ready. The optician told the glasses technician, that I needed an express job. I waited impatiently to get my new glasses. I was so glad to see perfect again when I walked out of the shop with my new glasses. My Mom was very concerned about the strength of my new glasses, but got used to my new look quite fast. Since then I wear glasses every day from morning to evening. My contact to Bertha, who made the same as I did continued over the years and she helped me to get stronger glasses through the stock of her mother from time to time. So, I increased the strength of my glasses up to -11 diopers. I had listened to Astrid without saying a word: “A fascinating story, I wouldn’t have thought that this is possible. Your friendship to Caren was the force that finally triggered your decision that came out of games you played with Bertha.”