I am as blind as a bat.  At least that’s what the optometrist told me when I was 9 years old.  When you are 9 and a doctor tells you that you are blind, you believe them. The fact that he had a heavy foreign accent made it more legitimate and scary. I don’t mind saying it was traumatic for me. My poor mom always felt terrible that she hadn’t taken me to get my eyes checked sooner. I have no idea what the catalyst was for her to finally take me, but she was probably around 5 years too late. My guess is if I were born in current times I would be one of those babies with the bendy glasses peeking out from my crib.

So there I was at 9 years old seeing 20/20 for the first time. I could see the clock numbers on the microwave!! I could see the individual fibers that made up the carpet! We had a dog??? Who knew?

Side Note:

After it was discovered I needed glasses my mom said “I wondered why you always asked me what time it was.” It’s true. I would ask numerous times a day and she would answer, “Go look at the clock.” Apparently me getting up from the couch, walking across the room to the clock, and pressing my face right up to it was not a clue. (In her defense, she was busy doing A LOT of crossword puzzles during my formative years). And it wasn’t like anyone noticed or thought it was unusual that I sat right in front of the television. When you are the human channel changer for your dad, you are just naturally two inches away from the tv anyway.

I’m not sure why out of the several pairs of glasses I had over the years my mom always chose to get the lenses tinted. I know, I know, this was the style in the late 70’s and early 80’s; but I when I say tinted, I mean if my glasses were car windows they would be illegal. It was as if non-tinted wasn’t an option. One year she chose purple for me. I am not kidding. They were so dark we had to send them back to have some of the color bleached out. Add this to the hexagon shape and curvy temples (this is the straight part that goes from the lens to the ear. I bet you didn’t know that. Why would you? You have probably never had to write a blog about them before) and you have the makings of a real babe.

Now let me explain some things to you seeing-eye humans. The worse your eyesight is, the thicker the lens. And contrary to what it would seem, a big frame is worse. Instead of the lens thinning out as it gets bigger, it actually thickens near the edge. So I was stuck with big, wide, thick, purple-tinted glasses. I looked like the love child of Charles Nelson Reilly and Elton John. (Google them. It makes more sense than you realize).

You know those hypothetical questions like “If your mom came back to life for one more day what would you do?” I would not be one of those people to take a long walk in the park and discuss death and heaven and the meaning of life.   I would be holding up pictures asking, “What in actual hell were you thinking?”

(Follow up questions would be 1) Why did I have to get the kind of braces that went around your whole tooth? 2) Why didn’t you introduce me to tweezers and razors earlier? 3) How could you just let me put my autographed Johnny Bench baseballs in the Goodwill Box?)

Five years later I got contacts. Thirty five years later my eyes are getting worse again. Or better, depending on how you look at it. After years of being near-sighted I can now see much better when I hold a restaurant menu as far away from me as my arms will stretch.

People ask me why I haven’t ever gotten LASIK surgery.  My eyes are a part of my identity.  I have no idea what it would be like to wake up and see clearly.  To not have that feeling of annoyance on a night where I am exhausted but I have to get out of bed to take out my contacts.  To not occasionally “lose” a contact in my own eye.  These things make me feel like me.  They have been me for almost my entire life.  So for now, I will stay the way I am.  Looking at life through rose-colored glasses.  Just not literally anymore.

Left: Fifth grade. 1979.  I look like a boy.  Actually, with that collar and sweater combo PLUS the brownish tint of the glasses I look like a MAN.  Maybe a man getting ready to go to a work party.

Middle: Sixth grade. 1980.  If you are a follower of this blog you will recall seeing this photo a few posts ago. Someday I will write an entire blog dissecting how it all went down that day. I remember it vividly.  That oversized hexagon shape was all the rage. Fun fact: Believe it or not, the first sentence in my diary from that year reads “1980 was the best year of my life.”  I mean, what was going on that was so fantastic while I looked like that? Maybe with the long hair and earrings people now knew I was a girl?

Right: Seventh grade. 1981. Still going for the preppy look. Middle school agrees with me. Relative to the other pictures and years I am a stone cold fox.  The glasses are somewhat smaller and better suited to my face.  Notice: LENSES STILL TINTED.