Indeed. Why don't I even look into the op that so many of my friends and family have done? They all sing its praises to the skies. Why do I insist on this tedious existence, scrambling around for my glasses at all hours so I can make my way safely around my house? Am I completely, barking mad?
I have braved endless insults in the name of wearing glasses. It all started from 3rd grade, when the school routine eye checks showed that I did not pass the test. I-would-have-to-wear-glasses they said. I felt like I was being catapulted into the abyss. What would this mean for me socially? Was I to be a nerd? Was I to be one of those undesirables with magnifying glasses in front of their eyes that nobody wanted on their sports team?
I was. Not right at the start of my glasses career. But I think I grew to fit the model slowly. It was in a way comforting. It gave me room to do the things I wanted: read, daydream, be invisible in the screaming crowd. They were like a shield, a big frame to hide behind. Nothing could really touch me, I was removed from the action and given a free pass to observe from behind the glass.
Until I was 13. Then I discovered contact lenses. And make-up and boys. Glasses became my enemy and I embraced contacts as my life-jacket out of the land of the nerds. But I missed wearing glasses. As soon as I realised that I was able to get the breed of boyfriend I was after I breathed a huge sigh of relief and bought myself a pair of John Lennon round hippy glasses and happily went back behind the lense. And to this day in the face of insults (I have been told my glasses make me look ugly, funny, male and all sorts of other things) I carry on. For me, there is nothing quite like the feeling of glasses resting on my nose. Sometimes it is a reminder that we should never identify too much with this body. Sometimes it is a reminder to not take things for granted. And it is always an option, my choice to be 'ugly' or goofy or dorky. Glasses and I have come a long way together. We have a past and a present. And dammit, I want us to have a future!
