IT'S HOW YOU SEE IT

I went to the eye doctor to get a new pair of glasses and check my eyes.
After the eye test, the doctor asked me if I have been hanging upside down in some cave.

Not really.

 My eyes have changed very little since 2015 when I saw the doctor last. A slight change in prescription was all I need. The last time I needed a change in prescription was before the turn of the century! When you say it that way it sounds pretty impressive.

Mom never needed glasses as a rule. She did use them but wasn’t reliant on them like her children and Dad were. Nothing fussy, just something to help her read the fine print as she got older and never needed them for the back of her head with her 20/20 vision.

Dad always wore glasses. When he was born the doctor reached in and got Dad, then reached in again to get his glasses!

Picking out a frame is a very daunting thing for me. I approach the selection case with great trepidation, as there are so many different styles! Plastic or wire, square or round, deep or short? I recall fondly my Mom taking me for my first pair of glasses.

“Sit down and shut up!” she said.

After the doctor gave me a test I got up and looked into the mirror and pretending to like what I saw. Back in the day, wearing glasses was a sign of weakness. To overcome social pain, I would only wear them in the classroom. Once class was over my pride took over too. I would fold them on the way out of the classroom and drop them on my nose when I entered the next class. I had so many bumps and bruises from walking into things it looked like I was constantly fighting, which helped my image until I grew older and didn’t care anymore and wore them all of the time.

There is much to learn from buying a new frame. How to clean the lenses is most important. You don’t just use a dry cloth that they give you in the case with the new glasses, no, now you need a cleaning spray and then the wiping cloth is used.

Never keep them in cold or warmth, especially in your shirt pocket. Did you know there are different layers of coating on the lenses? That flip box they give you with the glasses? It should be kept to protect the glasses. I never knew that!

I’ve had glasses that made me look like Woody Allen and Peter Sellers or so they tell me, but nothing that made me look like I thought I should look like, me.