Girls Who Wear Glasses

You know what they say about girls who wear glasses? That we don't see very well.

There's a dreaded block of weeks that come out of every year.  It hits once in the Spring and once in the Fall when the weather changes and the new mold, pollen and ragweed is grown.  Allergy season.  The first few weeks of allergy season hit me hard and contacts are just not doable during these times.

There's always the people who will avoid me these weeks, because either: a.) My eyes are all red, swollen and dripping and they think I have pink eye; b.) I'm sneezing like it's a contest and there's money involved, so they think I'm contagious with something; c.)  My sinuses are swollen, I'm grumpy and I'm not wearing makeup, so they think that my paleness equals the flu and their flu shot hasn't kicked in yet; or d.) I'm wearing my glasses and they don't want to be seen with a four-eyes.

As an adult, I've come to terms with Allergy Weeks.  I was very vain in the past and was a glasses refuser for many a year.  If you don't remember my Back to School post, this was my first pair of glasses:

I wasn't diagnosed as near-blind until middle school.  Even though the schools gave us eye exams every few years, I had the worst time trying to see the blackboard and would have to pull the side of my eyelids out toward my ears to be able to see what that night's homework assignment was and I was known to accidentally try to open my neighbor's locker from time to time.  No teacher caught on until I was thirteen.  (Thanks public school system!)

Getting glasses opened a whole new world of near-20/20 vision to me.  My mom was amazed on our ride home from the eye doctors that first day of vision.  I marveled at the ability to read traffic signs (I had always wondered why they didn't make them much larger) and the fact that I could see the outline of every individual leaf on each tree. (I had always thought that, until you climbed up in one, trees were supposed to look the way every grade-schooler drew them. Brown stick with green cotton candy blob on top.)  The world was finally mine, because I COULD SEE IT!!!!

Then came high school. 

I don't believe a picture exists of me donning my high schools frames.  In fact, I made sure of it at the time!  But, rooting through some boxes in the basement produced the brown plastic glasses that made my life a living burning hell.  They looked a little something like this:

Now imagine that look on a younger, paler, less made up and greater eyebrowed fourteen-year-old whose-face-hadn't-filled-out-yet version of me and you can imagine my pain. 

I never felt ashamed of wearing glasses until high school. I was just ecstatic to finally be able to see up until that point.  Perhaps it all started when the female bully in my math class would torture me by having her friends call me "Goggle glasses" for almost every day of my geometry life.  When I'd turn around and glare to half stand up for myself (a move my older sister often used effectively on me) she'd howl, "Ooooh!  The look of death!  If looks could kill!"  If only I had the courage to ask, If  I'm in 9th grade and you're in 11th grade, why are we even in the same math class?"  But I didn't. 

One of her friends eventually did stand up to her one day (since my teacher never did) and said, "Why don't we just leave her alone?"  A few years later, after high school, that same friend delivered a pizza to my house.  I was wearing contacts and eyeliner and had come into my own by that age, but I noticed a vague flicker of recognition in her eyes.  She had a small look of fear that I was going to now chew her out for going along with the "Goggle glasses" chant her bully friend had wrangled her into.  But, I always chose to remember her as the girl who made it stop.  I never mentioned recognizing her but gave her a good tip, it was the least I could do.

From that year on I was Jan Brady.  Glasses were donned only to see the chalkboard, came back off as quickly as possible and then placed back on once a parent would emerge.  Finally, at age sixteen, I was granted a pair of contact lenses.  The heavens sang!

Contacts changed my life.  They somehow gave me confidence.  Then there was the boy, who supposedly liked me, and showed such affection by asking me, "Where's your glasses? I thought you wore glasses.  You have a 'glasses' kind of nose."  Yes, thank you.  I'm flattered.  You too can achieve such a nose by standing yours in front of every basketball and volleyball in gym class that comes your way.  Using this technique over the course of several years, your nose will eventually develop a shelf of a bump perfect for resting a pair of Coke bottle lenses. 

Then came the insecurity about the nose.

These days we have wonderful inventions like glare-proof coating and feather-weight lenses (my "glasses kind of nose" until then would throb under the weight of my thick prescription.)  Frames became smaller and trendier, and some people even wear them, despite their natural 20/20 vision, with clear glass in them for---get this--fashion! 

I don't mind wearing my glasses anymore.  But, only on a from-time-to-time basis.  There's still a small part of me that shrinks a little once the frames hit the bridge of my nose.  I find it harder to sit tall and make eye contact with them on.  I'm a little less witty and not a fan of the loss of peripheral vision that goes with wearing them.  But, I've learned over time that the glasses/nose/tanness of skin/clothes/looks don't make the (wo)man.  People eventually start being impressed by your personality and talents and all the rest of that stuff becomes backdrop.

I don't know how or when this switch is turned on, but I'm glad that it does.  If only we could teach the teenagers this trick.  If I only knew then what I know now, I could have steam-rolled that bully with sarcasm and had the whole class turn on her. 

But, I'm glad that I didn't.  I'm a better person this way.  Four eyes and all!