During the summers, back when I was around 5 years old my mom would drop me off at daycare before she headed to work. Once a week in the afternoon the ladies at the daycare would walk us a few blocks to the community swimming pool, where there were special swim classes for children of preschool age. There were 6 of us from the daycare, and there were generally another dozen or so other children at the pool ranging in age from 3 to 6. We didn’t learn much, but we certainly enjoyed being in the shallow kids pool, as it was pretty warm that summer and the pool was a great place to cool off. I remember the day I first went to the pool like it was yesterday. That was when I met Lauren for the first time. I spotted this young girl with a pair of swim glasses strapped to her head, but as I watched her I saw that even with her wearing the swim glasses she would not place her head under water. A couple of us were a little rambunctious, and we were splashing around a bit. We splashed Lauren, whose name I did not know yet and I watched as her mom unhooked the strap around her head and took what I had thought were swim goggles off her face and cleaned the water from the lenses. With the goggles off her face I could see that what I thought were swim goggles were in fact real glasses with lenses that were so thick that they came right back into the edge of her face and they hid her eyes completely. Her mother admonished Andy and I for splashing Lauren’s glasses, and we both apologized. After that we were a bit more careful about who and how we were splashing. Lauren was back with her mom the following week. I was not even 6 years old yet, and my interest in girls was likely at the lowest level it possibly could be. I didn’t dislike the members of the female sex, but I just wasn’t terribly interested in having anything to do with them. But after I found out that those swim goggles that Lauren wore were in reality very thick prescription eyeglasses something drew me to Lauren, and by the end of the summer I had spent enough time hanging around and talking to Lauren that we felt very comfortable with each other. I discovered that Lauren was a year younger then I was. She lived in a town house that was within walking distance of my house, and she was going to have the same kindergarten teacher that I had the previous year. During that year, since Lauren’s place was pretty much on my route to school I walked over to Lauren’s and we walked to school together. I rather doubt that I had put much thought into romance at this point and I am pretty sure that my attraction towards Lauren was only because of her glasses. At one point I had asked her to let me try them on, and I guess by that time we were such good friends that she did. I was amazed at the fact that I could not see a thing through her lenses, but I could understand when she told me that she could not see a thing without them. She explained to me that what she saw without her glasses was likely pretty similar to what I saw when I put them on. During our time together in public school I really didn’t do much more than protect Lauren from any of the guys who tried to bully her. She had minor problems from time to time with a few of the other girls, but this was just verbal stuff – like them calling her blind as a mole and four eyes as well a few other hurtful comments. In those cases I did my best to console her and as other kids in her class gradually ended up getting glasses themselves the comments pretty much stopped. Lauren would never be one of the popular girls in school – her thick glasses and poor eyesight prevented that from ever happening. As time went on and we grew up my feelings for Lauren grew deeper and deeper. As I got into the higher grades there were a few girls who tried to catch my eye, but I only had eyes for Lauren. By now her glasses no longer looked like swim goggles, but the lenses had little circles right in the center just in front of her eyes that she had to look through. I thought they looked cute, but she really didn’t care for them. Lauren had been, from what she told me, very fortunate. Her prescription for her glasses now was only slightly stronger than it had been in the pair she was wearing when I first met her. Lauren’s corrected eyesight was nowhere near 20/20. I had never asked her exactly what she could or could not see, but I knew that I often had to read signs and other stuff for her. My curiosity about her poor eyesight was piqued when she was in grade 10 and I went with her on a visit to her eye doctor. I had asked her if I could come in with her to see the doctor, and she then asked the doctor who allowed me to sit in the room while Lauren had a thorough eye exam. This time her prescription had gone up a little more, and she was now going to need glasses that were -30D. I helped Lauren select a new frame, and she ordered 1.74 index plastic lenses that were going to have the same indented front curve that her old glasses had. When she got them I rather liked her new glasses and I claimed responsibility for the fact that they looked pretty darned good on her face. I don’t think anyone else would suggest that Lauren was a raving beauty. I thought she was very attractive, and she had a nice full figure by the time she was 18. She had a rather large chest size, which I quite liked. And I don’t know if it was the fact that I was with her most of the time that prevented any other guys asking her out, but I made sure that no one had a chance to cut my grass. I was so hooked on Lauren that I had not really given her any time to be with anyone else, and one day, just before I graduated from high school, we had a really good talk about our feelings for each other. I told Lauren that I loved her more than anyone else in the world, and I wanted nothing more in life than to be married to her and live with her forever. I told her that I would be devastated if she met someone else while I was going to university and no longer wanted to be with me. Lauren told me that she sort of felt the same way about me, but that every once in a while she wondered if there was another guy out there that would be attracted to her and would love her as much as I did. My reply to her was that there probably were lots of other guys out there that would love her, but since she had me there was no reason to ever go looking, and she agreed. I never wanted Lauren to have to go out into the workforce as I was fairly sure that her obviously extremely strong glasses and poor eyesight would prevent her from getting a job, and this would only embarrass her and lower her self-confidence even further. As a result I felt I needed to get enough education in a field where I could earn a good living for both of us, as well as to support the 2 or 3 kids I wanted to have. I had chosen my courses to allow me to enter the medical field after I graduated, and as a result I was going to have to study long and hard. When I told Lauren that my hopes were to become an optometrist and maybe even an ophthalmologist she was surprised, but rather pleased at my choice. After all, with such poor eyesight it would be nice for her to have her own personal eye doctor in the family. And I had explained to Lauren that as long as I could earn enough money to support her and our future children she would never have to work. Lauren did leave school after she had graduated from high school. I had finished my first year at university and was going to go on to second year. I was still able to live at home, although the bus ride every day took quite a bite of time out of my day. But it was worth it because I was saving a lot of money. Lauren was not content to sit at home and do nothing while I went to school, but with only a high school education there was not much she could do. Fortunately she was able to get a job as a waitress and although the wages were pretty low she was a good waitress and she made fairly decent tips. She did have to put up with the odd customer who made nasty comments about her thick glasses, but she had been used to this all her life and she tried to not let it bother her. She had to be careful not to make any mistakes though, as that would often get her a lower tip and possibly a nasty comment about her eyesight. Lauren ended up working as a waitress for the entire time it took me to complete my studies. I had to apprentice to a licensed doctor before I could write my final exams, but at least I got paid while I worked, albeit at a lower salary than I could obtain once I got my own license. However, it was good training for me, and my wages were enough to live on and save a little money for me to set up my own practice without going too far into debt. Marriage had been talked about, but no real plans had been formed. Lauren’s vision had seemingly stabilized around a -32D prescription and to me her newest pair of myodiscs looked fantastic on her face. Lauren had not been a ravishing beauty when she was a teenager, but as she matured her features softened and she grew more beautiful every day. I knew I had better get off my butt and ask Lauren to marry me because the way she was looking now even her strong glasses wouldn’t deter other men from trying to ask her out. And if she happened to run across someone who was a lover of girls wearing strong glasses I would have a real run for my money. I didn’t want to take a chance on losing her, so I asked Lauren to marry me, and she accepted. Both Lauren and I were only children. Neither of Lauren’s parents wore glasses, and as far as I could determine there was no one else in Lauren’s extended family that had a case of severe myopia. She did have one cousin who wore glasses for the correction of her myopia, but her glasses were likely somewhere between -5D and -6D. I had done a lot of studying as to why a person who had no familial background of myopia would be myopic and my studies showed that after years of research they could not determine any specific cause. But it was obvious that Lauren had pathological high myopia and her eyes were going to have to be watched closely for the rest of her life to ensure that none of the problems associated with what they call degenerative myopia would affect her. Lauren had first gotten glasses when she was 9 months of age, and other than her doctor having her unsuccessfully try contact lenses when she was 15 she had worn her glasses every waking moment of her life. The doctor I was apprenticing under had been Lauren’s eye doctor all of her life and he and I often discussed Lauren’s eyes and the potential problems she might be faced with later in life. He felt that since Lauren had been formed in the womb with very high myopia that her retinas were not as stretched as someone who was born with good eyesight and then becomes very nearsighted. Since her eyeballs were already severely elongated at birth it was quite possible that her retinas might not ever detach, as the degree of myopia she had developed since she got her first pair of glasses was, at this time, only about -4D. This was only his theory, but I thought that possibly there was some validity to it, and I felt that once I had my own practice and could experiment a bit more I was going to check out Lauren’s eyes very carefully. But first we wanted to get married and despite some parental objections on both our parents’ parts we finally reached the point where we were planning a wedding. I could understand my parents being a little apprehensive about having a daughter in law with very poor vision. But I couldn’t understand why Lauren’s parents were not thrilled about her marrying me. In the end it turned out that they had been so protective of her all of her life that they were finding it hard to let her go out on her own. But they finally relented and gave their consent. After all, who better to look after a poorly sighted daughter than a professional eye doctor? I was 27 and Lauren was almost 26 when we were married. Both our parents had gotten together and had given us the down payment for a house so it didn’t take long before we found a home we thought would be very suitable for us. Since Lauren could never pass the vision exam required for her to get a driver’s license we wanted her to be able to walk to a grocery store and we also wanted her to be within walking distance of her parents’ home. We paid more for our house than we thought we should, but since it suited our requirements we felt it was our best move. The last couple of years have been wonderful. Lauren has quite an appetite for sex, and we spend as much time as possible in the bedroom. She had been taking birth control pills, but recently we decided that as soon as she uses up her present stock we will try the rhythm method for about 6 months and then we hope Lauren will manage to conceive. The possibility is there that if we have a daughter, she too will have to wear similar glasses to the ones I originally mistook for swim googles, and I have come to terms with that. Specs4ever Nov 2016
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