Chapter 1.5: I Can See Clearly Now...Sort Of

I have had glasses since I was eight year old. And I am blind. Like sixty-year old woman peering through Coke bottle thick lenses at her knitting blind. Now, I love my glasses. My pair now are cute (and were extra expensive since the insurance didn't cover them because Dad's company gets crap insurance. Also because my head is neither adult size nor child size, so I couldn't just deal with any of the frames actually covered by insurance). My glasses are the reason my friend (and roommate) Ron calls me Harry.

But recently I've seriously wondered what it would be like to see the world without a set of frames obscuring my face. So yesterday I went to the eye doctor and got my first pair of contacts. The reason I haven't done this before comes from a horror story told to me by Mom about her first and only pair of contacts. They were rigid lenses and they slid off her eye, getting stuck on the side and having to be taken out with a little plunger thing by her optometrist. This little anecdote freaked me out and I figured, "I like my glasses and either way I'm going to need something to assist my vision, so why bother?"

But while I was in London, I saw a different, more mature, and I'll admit it (shallow as it may be) more beautiful Ashleigh. And I really really wanted to see her again. Part of that girl was what I looked like without glasses, so I asked Mom if I could get contacts. And being the wonderful Mom that she is, she paid out of pocket for the eye exam (because our crap insurance only covers an eye exam every two years instead of every year. Even though you're supposed to have an eye exam every year) and took me to get them.

Another reason I'd been a little reluctant before was because I thought I'd need hard lenses, which sounded really, really uncomfortable to me. But surprise! Any astigmatism I have is very little, so the optometrist said I could wear disposable soft lenses! Which makes wearing them sooooooo much more comfortable. And makes the care a lot less stressful. I throw them away every two weeks.

The receptionist helped show me how to put them in and take them out and clean them. And apparently I caught on really quickly, even if it didn't feel like it to me. I got my first pair that very day and will order the box when I go back in for my check-up next week. For the first time in twelve years, I could see my eyes again.

And damn! They are HUGE. It's like instead of my head growing while my eyes stayed their same size (which is why babies have such big eyes) my eyes grew with me. They're like the size of quarters. The nice thing about the contacts is that I don't have to worry about my super long eyelashes scraping the lens like I do with my glasses.

They are going to take some getting used to though. First of all, they're a slightly stronger prescription which is always disorienting at first. The floor tends to go all bendy when you look at it, which sucks for an uber-klutz who depends on watching the ground to keep her balance. Seriously, the sidewalks in old parts of town are my arch-nemesis who daily plot my bruise patterns and ways to make me look foolish in front of the perfectly balance. Or gravity just likes me more than everyone else. The jury is still out on that one.

Where was I? Ah, yes. New contacts. A new prescription, at least this one, makes it a little hard to focus in on things. So taking me to the store and sending me off to find the granola I want is not exactly a good idea. Thankfully, I did not just embarrassingly overlook the granola; the store did not actually have it.

It will also take some practice to actually get them in and out easily. I hate the sick, disorienting feeling of when one contact is out and one is in. The blurry/clear dual dynamic is very dizzying. However, tonight it only took me two tries to get them out! Took me forever to get them in, but only two tries to get out! Only problem is after having them in for so long my glasses make me feel a little dizzy. I really love them though; they make me feel so lovely and mature.

Wish I had a real way to end these posts. Anyone have any ideas?