My Glasses, The Good, The Bad, And the Ugly!

By Beth 

Chapter 1:  THE GOOD

I remember quite well what life was like before I wore glasses.  That for me would be before the age of seven.  Yes, it took seven years for my parents and I to figure out that I needed glasses.  It was not that they were not attentive, or intuitive.  How could I blame them, I did not know anything was wrong myself!  Life always looked that way from before I can remember. Soft edges on everything.   The horrible part is that I thought I was a retard, deformed, or maybe just dumb.  Other kids could do things that I could not.  I didn't know why.  I just figured they were better then me.  The real horror of not knowing about glasses was this poor self image I had developed, even at this young age.  No other kid I knew even wore glasses.  It was a small town and I think there were only fifteen kids in my grade school class.  Something was wrong and I knew it, but to me it had more to do with stupidity then something that was fixable.  Try as I did, everyone just did things better then me.  It was my second year of school that brought me the greatest change in my life.  You could say, it saved my life.  I was holding things close to my eyes and my teacher picked up on this.   One afternoon, my parents, my teacher, and I met.  I was scared!  What had I done wrong?  Boy, was I in trouble.  I can only paraphrase because the exact words were lost to me years ago, but basically she told my parents she thought I was nearsighted.  I had no idea what that meant, but it sounded like something I was not going to get punished for, and that was way cool!  I think I actually thought it was a type of retard, after all, that's what I thought I was!

So, I was going for an eye test. That's enough to scare the life out of a kid like me! What was an eye test? Did they take your eyes out of your head and do something with them?  I was freaking out, and the fact that the dripped this stingy stuff in my eyes did not help at all!  There I was in this darkened room, and they were lowering this big thing on my face I was sure to suck my eyeballs out! I was crying, screaming, wailing!  My mother held my hand. I started to calm down. The big thing was on my face and my eyes were still in my head. Maybe this wasn't going to be so bad after all. With one eye blocked they started asking questions. Would I get them wrong?  I'm a retard!  What would I fail now?

Then it happened. After several A or B choices, the crazy E's started to look different. They had edges! With each choice, more of them got edges on them!  I started to get excited! This sounds so stupid, but I had never seen edges before!  I could hardly sit still in my chair as they set to work on the other eye! With the test done, the doctor flipped on the lights. I was still transfixed, staring through the big glasses thing. It was just by fate, but I had a million dollar moment- My parents walked in front of me and I saw them clearly for the first time in my life! 

What were glasses? When I saw all the frames, I recalled that this is something I had seen older people wear, but never knew why. I was still quite excited when we started looking at the frames, but got frustrated when they put them on my face and nothing looked different. Of course, they were empty frames, but I didn't know that made a difference. Then came the two longest weeks of my life.  I knew something great was coming, but unlike today, there were no one hour glasses stores.  I started telling all my friends that I was getting glasses.  Like today, no one seamed interested in this great happening.  It could be that like me, they did not know what glasses were about. When my mom got the call, I got downright hyper. We drove down to the doctors and as before, my imagination was going wild. The other glasses didn't work (empty frames), why would these?  Maybe the only thing that would work was that big thing the doctor had. 

It was a small cardboard box that had been shipped to the office from some magical place where they made glasses. My mother bent the little metal tabs back and opened the box. Slowly, she unwrapped the contents. These didn't look like the frames I had tried on. They had something in the eye holes. Something that distorted the lights and made the room look different. She unfolded them and handed them to me. I lifted them to my face. The office worker started fiddling with them on my face but I could barely sit still !  Everything looked fantastic!  I could SEE !   

I don't think I slept right for a week! I ran around like a crazy girl telling everyone I knew how fantastic these things were!  Most kids just stared or laughed, but I didn't care! I could SEE !   Stuff that had been impossible before, now all made sense. To this day, I remember that feeling and always will.  My glasses saved my life and I will always love my glasses for that!

Chapter 2: THE BAD

By my teens, my love had faded. I took what they could do for granted. That is probably true with every aspect of teen life. You take the good things for granted. By now, I had got to know many other kids with glasses. Several trips to the eye doctor had revealed some progression in my myopia, and I was well aware that my vision was worse then the other kids I knew. My straight A average had long since put the "retard" theory to bed, but now there was a new challenge I was failing at. Boys. Looking back, I can see there were many reasons for these failures, but at the time, I was sure it was the glasses. "I want contacts", I wined to my parents. In my mind, the glasses were standing in my way and ruining my chances to get a boyfriend. My love of my specs turned to hate. How ugly and thick they were!  One day, I was wearing my glasses and holding an older pair in my hands. How hideous they looked!  I remember twisting them until they broke. I later threw them out of the bus window so that the traffic could finish them off.  

My parents finally relented and had me fitted for contacts. Putting them in my eyes was horrible, but I could look in the mirror and see a normal face look back at me. Once again I felt proud, and strutted around school like I was the hottest thing going!  I wasn't. I was just an average girl, quite shy, and still turning the boys off.  When I look back at it, it all makes sense. I was chasing after the hottest looking guys around. Trouble is, they were chasing after the hottest looking girls. It had nothing to do with the glasses. Still, I felt good wearing the contacts. So good, I often forgot to take them out. This was twenty years ago, long before the extended wear contacts they have now. I got myself in big trouble. Two infected corneas, to be exact. 

One year after my great contact experiment had started, it was over. I developed an extreme sensitivity to having them in my eyes. And not one boyfriend to show for almost going blind!  Once again, I found myself staring in the mirror at the reflection of a girl in glasses. It took awhile, but it dawned on me that the glasses weren't half bad. I had a sort of charmed look that I really liked. Somewhere between love and hate, I had now reached an equalized view of myself in glasses. This is a view I hold to this day. I am not fantastic looking, I am not ugly. My glasses do not add, but they do not take away either. 

Chapter 3: THE UGLY

In visiting sites like this one, and in talking to people in rooms like Lens Chat, I have found a great variance in the reason that guys may like girls who wear glasses. Most of them are quite harmless, but not all. Such was the case with my boyfriend Bill. I was seventeen. I had finally scored a boyfriend. He was not anything special, he did drink and did do drugs, but he also seamed to like me. At least that is what I thought. He said he liked me because I wore glasses, and he would often tease me about them. Testing to see just how bad my vision was without them. What this led up to was what I now look on as the worst weekend of my life. He drove me to a cabin that his folks owned, about 20 miles outside of town. I was still a virgin, and had some romantic ideas about what was going to happen. Forty eight hours alone with Bill !  The first night actually started out well. We watched TV and got a little drunk. It was then the conversation turned sexual. I was very nervous, but went along with the flow. We made it to the bedroom and into bed. It was then I chickened out. I did not know how to tell him, so things moved a bit forward with both of us getting undressed. I was trying to be kind and we started touching and kissing. During one of our kisses, he took my glasses. I had no cloths on but suddenly, without my glasses, I felt truly naked! I pulled back and asked for my glasses. 

Bill got very angry. He began yelling at me, calling me a tease and a bitch, as well as other things that were much worse. Again I asked for my glasses. He freaked! He smashed them on the table and threw them against the far wall !  I was frozen in fear as I heard bits and pieces of my glasses fly about the room. I was truly helpless. He had sex with me. Nothing like I had ever romanticized. This was for all practical purposes, a rape. Somewhere in the process, I realized that his was not an interest in glasses as much as having his way with someone who was powerless. A handicap fetish would be a better description. It was forty eight hours of hell. I have blocked most of it, but the overall feel is unblockable. I was a victim, and spent most of the time crying. I could probably have found a phone, but who would I call? I had lied to everyone in order to make this weekend possible. My only hope was to just play along and suffer until it was over. I could not see a thing, and I can remember crawling around looking for a lens, or anything that had been my glasses whenever he was not in the room. I never found anything.

On the trip back, I was nothing more then a huddled speechless mess. He dropped me at home as if nothing had happened. My parents knew otherwise, but I could not put the words together, other than to say I had a bad time and had lost my glasses. I remember picking up the spare pair that was on my nightstand and seeing clearly for the first time in two days. I would never take my glasses for granted again!

I never told my parents what happened. I knew my dad would kill him if he found out. In a turn of fate, Bill got arrested two weeks later for dealing drugs to an undercover cop! That provided a great deal of healing for me. I never saw him again, and hope that lucky streak continues. As for me and my glasses, we are inseparable. I am also never far away from a spare pair. Yes, I thought about laser surgery, but my vision would only be partially correctable. For that, I am not willing to take the chance. Besides, I think once again, I kind of like my glasses!

So much for my life. Probably a boring story for those outside of this site. Maybe a boring story even for those who are here! But that is my story, my glasses, the good, the bad, and the ugly!

Back to Story Index