The Eyes Have It

My eyes have never been great. When I was young, and couldn't read the whiteboard in school, they blamed it on my "inability to pay attention". When I started to drive and couldn't read road signs, I just memorized the color and shape of the signs and did my best. The thing is, no one else in my family had eye problems so they didn't believe I needed them. Not the schools, not the family, not the doctors.

Of course the schools and doctors all did their own "exams". Which consisted of sitting me five feet from a giant poster and telling me to read it. End result was always the same. I could read letters as big as my head from five feet away, so I must be faking. I wasn't blind, I just had a hard time seeing far away. Which apparently they don't test for in kids. Or didn't in the 80s.

When I got married and had a kid, I finally got around to having them checked out for myself. By an actual eye doctor. Turns out I wasn't crazy, I could hardly see at all. On top of an astigmatism, I had near sightedness and the beginning signs of glaucoma. So there third grade teacher.

Anyway, since then, I have been an ol four eyes. I remember saying something to the effect of "the trees have individual leaves on them!" after I picked up my first pair of glasses. It was a weird, dizzying change for me. I could see! I could read road signs! I could find my exit the first time! Lets just say it saved me enough time in u-turns to justify the cost of the glasses.

Since that first pair snapped in half after years of abuse, I have tried (and hated) contacts and owned about 3 more pairs of glasses. Each of which have met a miserable, violent demise by the hands of one or the other of my boys. The most recent pair has been my favorite. Well, they just work and I feel like they fit my face.

Today though, I go to have my eyes rechecked and then I am off to find a new pair of glasses that don't make me look like some kind of librarian. I have always preferred the heavier plastic frames to the wiry, see through kind but I am thinking that this time I will just let them tell me which to get. Partly because I trust their judgement and partly because I don't care as long as I stop getting a migraine every time I spend more than an hour at the computer.

Here's hoping that I can find something that will help me in my goal of updating my look at least. Its been a year for change and this is kind of the last step I suppose. If I don't trip and break my neck without my glasses on in their office, I will show you how the new pair works out when they come in. Which will hopefully be quick and painless so I don't have time to regret it.