A year ago I was recording an episode of the Fandesals Podcast with my friend Judith and we talked about the things that we can’t live without. One of the things that I mentioned in the podcast (episode embedded below) was that I could not live without my glasses. Now that I think about it, I think that I have been wearing glasses practically all my life!
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| Image by StockSnap from Pixabay |
I was in elementary school when I started wearing glasses. It was embarrassing, to be honest. I had to wear thick ones that reminded people of the bottoms of Coca-Cola bottles. I was told that I had astigmatism and that I was near-sighted, something that I remember my paternal grandmother and my mother blamed on my habit of reading too much even when it was already too dark to do so.
As I got older, I think I went through the stage where I would have glasses, but I would only wear them when they were necessary. I felt that wearing them made me look nerdy and unattractive so I tried to find ways to work around the situation. I asked my doctor if I could wear contacts, but that idea was shut down by my doctor because I was told that they were not good for people with astigmatism.
There was a time when I had a habit of only wearing my glasses when things were too blurry for me and I had to see things clearly. Most of the time though I tried to get used to the blur. I had gotten so used to it for a time that I had started to learn to recognize people who were far away from the way they walked so that I wouldn’t need my glasses. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t – which means that if I know you and didn’t say hi, it might not be what you think. I was probably not wearing my glasses and did not recognize you from a distance!
I’ve been able to put off updating my glasses during the pandemic because of the excuse that I was still too scared to go out but I recently decided to have my eyes checked again because my glasses did not fit me anymore. Either it got worse naturally or it was because I have not been using my prescribed glasses as often as I should. I’m guessing it was a little of both.
These days, I have not been able to live without my glasses. I need them to read and use my phone. As a friend of mine said, it is a sure sign that I am getting older. It does feel that way sometimes. If I don’t have them on, I tend to type the wrong letters on the phone and take blurry photos. The most embarrassing thing about not having glasses around to read is that I need to take photos of text and zoom the resulting photo to read something too small if I am not wearing glasses! Ergo, my glasses are often with me. I have one for regular things and another just for reading. The doctor suggested getting those bifocal ones, but I’ve heard that they can sometimes make you dizzy so I decided to just have two. It’s a bit of a hassle to keep switching glasses depending on what I need them for but it’s better than getting dizzy with the bifocals.
I still have stubborn days when I don’t wear my glasses, which usually happens during the weekends when I am just at home and hanging out with the family. I still need them to read, but sometimes I just use my zoom with the phone thing to do that if it’s not a long read. It’s annoying when I have those marks on my nose from the glasses so I give myself a rest from them during the weekends.
There is a part of me that wonders if I should get laser eye surgery to correct my vision but I am too scared to undergo the process. I don’t want to wear glasses anymore but I also don’t like the idea of being awake with my eyes open as a laser zaps into them. I keep having Final Destination thoughts (you need to have seen the scene I am talking about to get it) and it makes me panic just thinking about it!
I would love to see the day when I can completely go without my glasses. But for now, it is something that I cannot live without.
For more on other things that I cannot live without, check out this Season 2 episode of the Fandesals Podcast!
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