I'm going blind!

One of the largest changes in my life occurred when I was in the fourth grade. A few weeks in, I was having trouble seeing the blackboard. I was not aware that anything was wrong with my eyesight. I just started noticing that I had to squint a lot to see things that were further away.

The weirdest thing about this is that I was taken to see the school nurse. She had one of those eye charts and asked me to read the smaller letters. I said I couldn't see them. She basically accused me of lying. I kept telling her that I couldn't read the letters and she kept telling me that I could. A week later, I went to see an eye doctor, who said that I did indeed need glasses.

Three weeks later, we went to the eye doctor to pick up the glasses. When we left the building, I looked down the street and realized how clearly I could see everything.

The worst thing about when you first wear glasses is that for the first few weeks, you are constantly aware that you are wearing glasses. That was always the first thought in my mind. It didn't matter what I was doing. It wasn't until a few weeks later at a Cub Scout meeting that I realized that I had stopped thinking about having glasses on my face.

My first pair had these thick black rims. Yes, I definitely looked like a geek. However, if you were a kid back then, you really didn't have much of a choice of designs, and I really didn't like the wire frames. I wanted it to be very obvious that I was wearing glasses.

I wore that design for three years. In the seventh grade, my parents made me switch to the wire frames. I didn't realize it at the time, but Mom says those glasses looked really small on my face. When I was in the ninth grade, I got glasses with a gradual tint in them. I wore that design for the next 18 years. After that, I got round wire frames with grey-tinted lenses and have stuck with that ever since.

When I got older, I was offered the opportunity to get contact lenses. I had a problem with using my finger to stick something smaller than a dime into my eyeball. I had also heard horror stories about people who accidentally fell asleep with them in their eyes. Even though they now have the plastic lenses that you can fall asleep with, I still am uneasy about having to poke my eyes every day.

While I am also eligible for the Lasik procedure, I am uneasy about the long-term effects. At any rate, I still don't think I look like myself when I am not wearing glasses. I guess I really identify with having them and will likely wear them the rest of my life.

While my eyesight has remained fairly steady since I started wearing glasses, I have noticed some deterioration. A few years ago, I noticed I was experiencing eye strain when I was trying to read something close up. However, I found I could read everything fine if I took my glasses off. An eye doctor recommended bi-focals. Oh, no! I refuse to admit I'm getting that old.

I WON'T GO BI-FOCAL!