Eyes Minus Frames

My legs are not the only imperfect parts of my body. My eyes need some help, too. Long story short, I've been wearing glasses since the fourth grade. Big, thick, heavy glasses, glasses that did their best to fade into nothingness, glasses which had unfortunate encounters with gravel driveways, glasses which had unfortunate encounters with concrete driveways, glasses which held together, glasses which managed to disintegrate…

My current pair of glasses is one of those pairs of glasses that has issues. Several unfortunate dives to the concrete driveway have resulted in chips in the lens. And then there are the frames. Now, in the best of times my glasses tend to wind up crooked. These particular glasses have managed to exceed all expectations for misbehavior. So without further adieu, my current pair of glasses:

(as I prefer them (minus the little flaws, such as crookedness and lens imperfections))

Though a bit crooked and dinged up, in this form they are intact. They stay on my head. This is not, however, how my glasses would like to look.

(as my glasses would like to look)

Note the one leg, mildly detached from the whole. This is a condition which can be triggered by a variety of sources, such as bus rides (I can't drive, so some days I ride a bus which manages to give air on straight, flat stretches of road with no major potholes), mild jolts, accidental brushings with fingers, general happiness, general unhappiness and just because.

Long story short, I got tired of the broken frames and chipped lenses. I decided to spring for contact lenses, picking up my first sets on Tuesday.

In theory, I love contact lenses. They allow me to see better and they get rid of the annoying frames on my face.

That's in theory.

In reality, contact lenses are massive pains to put on. It isn't the concept of potentially poking my eyes that gets me. I'm fine with that. The problem comes with getting them on my eyes in the first place. Apparently my eyes are a bit small and my eyelashes rather long, making it difficult to get those eyes open enough to stick the lens on top. I found this out the hard way on Tuesday. The eyeglasses store had to bring two people out to teach me. I dropped the lenses an impressive number of times. I took breaks. I paced around. Finally, a miracle happened: one lens went in. Then another.

At which point I had to learn to take them out. Surprisingly, that bit went well.

Flash-forward to Wednesday morning. I stand in front of the bathroom mirror, trying and trying and trying to get my eye open wide enough for the contact to get in (hopefully before I need to leave for school). That didn't work out. My glasses returned for the day. The one leg tried to fall off the frame.

Wednesday afternoon. More trying. More pacing. Take a break. Try some more. Pace some more. Give up. Do homework.

Thursday evening. My mother, realizing I needed help, bought me a magnifying mirror. I set it up at my desk and tried to get a lens in. I took breaks. I listened to music to try to reduce the stress. And the thing still would not go in my eye. Until another minor miracle occurred and a lens actually went in. The other lens, though, was less cooperative. Despite chocolates for positive thinking and moving my entire ensemble down to the dining room table, the lens refused to go in and I gave up and went to bed.

This afternoon. Back at the dining room table. Surprisingly, my smallish eyes were capable of being opened wide enough for the lenses to go in. I triumphed.

At the moment, I am not wearing glasses. Though my vision is really quite awful, I am capable of seeing things in reasonable detail. I do not have frames on my face in order for this to occur. I am not entirely sure this ability to see is real.

Long story short: getting out of frames and into contacts? Miserable.

Seeing from contacts? Remarkable.