The Struggles of Growing up with Glasses - You Know How It Is!

This is a celebratory reminder to all my other glasses-to-contacts transitioned friends out there! To those people who knew what it felt like to be the awkward kid in school wearing glasses. I was exactly that for most of my childhood. I obtained contacts during my junior year of high school, and I’ve never missed my glasses one bit! It’s freedom for my face. Nine years and counting!

If you can believe it, I actually wanted to have glasses when I was a kid. Probably because my older brother wore them, so I thought they were cool. Glasses were first attached to my face between first and second grade. I was, from that moment on, a four-eyes. Luckily no one seriously called me that. Only my best friend would joke about it. From that point, I had to deal with all the fun aspects that came from glasses-wearing (not).

For the most part I didn’t even notice I was wearing glasses since I became so used to them, but there were moments when it was especially annoying.

WATER: The water/fog issue.

This was the main problem I dealt with while wearing glasses. Whenever I’d be near any kind of steam, whether boiling a pot of water on the stove, or walking into a humid room, my glasses would fog up. In these situations, even if I wiped them off, they’d just fog back up again. I could hardly see when it rained and had to constantly wipe the lenses from rain spatters. I’d have to take them off and wipe them over and over, or try to shield them. Anytime I took a shower, I’d leave my glasses on the sink. I’d quickly grab the blurry bar of soap and shampoo to clean myself until I could step back out and see again.

My aunt had a pool in her backyard where my brother, my cousins, and I would go swimming a lot when we were kids. My brother and I would leave our glasses on a nearby table while we swam. That actually wasn’t too bad because we could still mostly see. But if anyone stopped by to say hi to us, we’d have to put on our glasses to see who it was. If we went to the beach, we’d leave our glasses on the towels with our parents. Even if we had worn our glasses in the ocean and tried to keep our heads out of the water, we’d end up getting splashed and have nothing to dry our glasses with. That wasn’t too bad either because we wouldn’t go to the beach that often. But if any sharks appeared near us, we probably wouldn’t have seen them!

The worst was high school gym class. I didn’t like gym class in general because whenever I got hit in the face (which was inevitable), my glasses would get pushed into my face, bent, or both. Swimming was the toughest because everything was blurry and I had to listen much harder. I’d complain to my mom about it, and she’d suggest that I ask the teacher if I could have someone with me to help me during swimming since I couldn’t see, but my teenage-self decided that would have been more embarrassing, so I continued to pretend I could see. At the end of each class I would eagerly grab for my glasses, which had been saving my towel on the nearby bench. I’d feel relieved no one had knocked them over or sat on them, giving me the ability to see again. I felt very vulnerable without them. Really any water activity didn’t work too well.

AIR: Remaining stationary.

Sometimes I had to worry about my glasses simply remaining on my face. My brother and I had to be careful on theme park rides, for anything that might turn us upside down, drop us suddenly, or throw a lot of wind in our faces. We had to be careful our gasses wouldn’t fly off. Luckily, I don’t think this ever happened, but it’s nice not having to even worry about it anymore!

EARTH: Dirt versus glass.

This one is straightforward. Whenever I’d play outside, I was basically always cleaning the dirt off of them. Whether I was climbing trees or playing on a playground, my glasses would get knocked into and spattered. Not to mention the dust that gathers there normally through regular wear. I don’t even want to know how many times I wiped my glasses off over the years. Life is so much easier not having to constantly clean the screen you see the world through.

FIRE: Of desire? I think not.

Let’s face it, glasses did not help my appearance at all. I was a scrawny, nerdy, silent kid and my glasses just added to that fact. I could never wear sunglasses because I was already wearing glasses, and I’d constantly have pink marks on my nose from the nose pieces. I thought I’d probably have permanent marks there when I got older. Luckily, I do not. Classmates would always want to try on my glasses to see how blind I was and it would always elicit the familiar “whoah!” Yes, I am blind.

It wasn’t until college, myself having been happily glasses-free for two years, when I learned of people actually wearing glasses for fun! My roommate wore glasses sometimes, and I was shocked to learn they had no prescriptions in them! She wore black frames because she liked them. I didn’t understand. Since then, I’ve seen most people with the rectangular or oversized black plastic frames. I suppose those have been the fashionable style of glasses lately, but I’m not going back!

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Whenever I got my prescription updated, I would be so happy about seeing things more clearly, but inside I would tell myself that this probably wasn’t good news because it meant my vision was failing even more. If I’m without my glasses, I can only clearly see about five inches in front of my face. Sometimes I would put my fingers on the corners of my eyes and pull them outward while squinting, and I could usually make something out further away.

A few years ago I was worried that my eyes would get so bad that I wouldn’t be able to wear contacts anymore. I thought once I got to certain point they might not be able to up my prescription any further and I’d have to go back to glasses again. When I went to the eye doctor for a new supply of contacts I had to ask him this question. Luckily he said I’d be fine!

I’m seriously thankful for technology because without glasses and contacts, I’d be blind. So many people wear glasses and contacts now though… how did humans function before glasses were invented?