SAA Ep.# 48: The Case for Contacts

When I was sixteen, my life was forever changed.  Did I fall in love?  Did I discover what I wanted to do with the rest of my life?  Did I get crowned Homecoming Queen?  Did I invent Silly Putty?  Did I discover Australia?  No. 

I got contact lenses. 

I'm nearsighted.  That's probably an understatement.  I'm terribly nearsighted, tremendously myopic, and practically blind without the aid of prescription lenses.  Without my glasses/contacts, I can't even see the words on this screen from more than four inches away.  I've been this way for most of my life.  I was that kid in first grade with coke bottle glasses.  And I guess I was cute, except for my parents decided I also needed a boy haircut since neither they nor I wanted to take care of my long princess hair.  Yeah, from 1st grade to 5th grade or so, I looked like a boy.  With four eyes.

And even when I started looking more like a girl, my glasses covered up my eyes.  I was pale, short, overweight, with a big nose and pointy chin.  The only redeemable traits I had were my hair (which I still didn't know how to take care of, so it was pretty much a big poofy mess most of the time--actually, that's still a fairly accurate description), and my eyes.  And no one could see my eyes because I still wore these ginormous 90's glasses.  And I'm pretty sure that while they were not at all the main factor, my glasses contributed greatly to my lack of popularity.

Hmm...with my poofy hair and big glasses, I imagine I looked a lot like a fatter version of Professor Trelawney from Harry Potter.  "You have...the GRIM!"

...she might even be more socially awkward than I am, poor thing...

Speaking of books, in my favorite book by Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time, the main character, Meg Murray, also wears glasses.  And one of my favorite scenes in this book is one of the more romantic ones, where unpopular and awkward 14-year-old Meg goes for a walk in the vegetable garden with popular and athletic Calvin O'Keefe.  She's crying because of some of the other issues in the book, and he takes off her glasses and wipes away her tears.  Then he says something I really like, because (and don't tell anyone this, because it's a well-kept secret) I'm sappy.  He says, "You know what?  You've got dreamboat eyes.  Listen, you go right on wearing your glasses.  I don't think I want anybody else to see what gorgeous eyes you have."  Aww.

And I think that I kind of expected to find a Calvin O'Keefe when I was fourteen--a guy who realized I had "dreamboat eyes" behind my glasses and didn't want anyone else to see them.  Meh.  Not so much.  Calvin O'Keefe never told me I had dreamboat eyes, just like Samwise Gamgee never noticed I wore ribbons in my Professor Trelawney hair.  Stupid fictional boys!  So I figured I'd take matters into my own hands and get contacts so that EVERYONE could see my eyes (and keep wearing ribbons in my hair, just because I like them.  Take that Rosie Cotton!).  One catch.  Mom and Dad didn't want me to get contacts yet.

But finally, the summer before I turned seventeen Mom and Dad let me get contact lenses, and everything changed.  I really believed that only my appearance would benefit from the new contact lenses, and I think my eye doctor realized this.  He even told me that he didn't expect I'd keep wearing them.  He said I'd go back to glasses because "glasses give you a sharper image and are easier to take care of." 

He was wrong, but I didn't know that yet.

I must admit that vanity is what brought me to contacts, but as soon as I placed those contacts in my eyes for the very first time, everything started to change. 

I had been wearing glasses for a decade at that point--since I was six years old.  When I put those contact lenses in, I realized something.  I realized something wonderful.  I could see out of the corners of my eyes.  For the first time in a decade, really the first time in my entire memory, I had peripheral vision.  Glasses could not give me that because they only went in front of my eyes.  At that time, I knew.  I knew I was never going back.

My eyes are pretty sensitive.  They hate too much light and I have to wear sunglasses all the time outside, even if it's rainy.  They also don't like it when something is in them that's not supposed to be.  It took me SIX MONTHS before I could convince my eyes that the contacts were supposed to be there.  I looked like I was crying for six months because my eyes were trying to get rid of the little plasticy things.  But I was determined to get used to them, and get used to them I did.  Yes, it was because of my vanity.  Yes, it was because I discovered that I really kinda sorta liked having clear peripheral vision.  It was also because contact lenses don't fog up, get rain splatters or fingerprint smudges on them, they don't slide down my nose, and they don't get in the way of my sunglasses (Easier to take care of?!  Sharper image?!  No way, eye doctor man!  No way.). 

I can put contacts in every morning and forget they're even there.  With glasses, I'm always seeing the little frames around my eyes.  I see every smudge, every drop of rain.  And let me tell you, when working with kids, it's IMPOSSIBLE to keep them from getting their sticky fingers all over my lenses.  Glasses are such a pain.  I hate them.  I hate the way I look in them, and I hate how much fuss they are.  And did I mention that I like being able to see out of the corners of my eyes?!

I do wish contact lenses were a little cheaper.  I remember the good ol' days before people started throwing their contacts away every few days.  I used to get the non-disposable kind that you could wear for like 2 years (I wore my last pair for FIVE years before one of them tore), but apparently they don't make them anymore.  I guess it's because people are too lazy to actually clean their contacts now.  Sigh.  So now I've got the kind you're supposed to wear for two weeks, and my current eye doctor told me, "If you take care of them, you can just throw them away at the end of the month."  I wear them for longer than a month, usually.  I clean them every night (it's not THAT hard, people) and just wear them until they get so dirty that my vision is worse WITH them than without them. 

And for someone with vision as poor as mine, that's really saying something.