I have shocking eyesight - really, really bad - and always have. My mum bought me my first pair of glasses when I was just over a year old, because I kept bumping into furniture. At first she thought I was just clumsy, but soon realised that I actually couldn't see the couch/chair/pointy edge of the coffee table.
(I would still absolutely wear this outfit)
When I was very little, my friends did not comment on them. If anything, they thought it was quite cool that I had these interesting bits of wire and glass on my face. When I started primary school, however, the older kids made sure that my classmates learned what glasses really meant - egghead, nerd, four-eyes. Along with the fat kid in my class, I was the token target of jokes. It didn't get better as I grew older and started to (heaven forbid) become interested in make-up and clothes and boys. I was a big pair of glasses with legs and arms, and it didn't matter what I wore or how I did my hair - the glasses were all anyone saw.
When I was fifteen, I got contact lenses. It sounds dramatic, but it really did change my life completely. I had eyes for the first time, it seemed. People started to notice their colour, which had never happened before. I had a whole face, in fact! People had trouble recognising me for the first few weeks - I honestly think that they had no idea what I actually looked like. I also felt more involved with the world; a physical and mental barrier had been removed. I was no longer safe behind a glass shield. It felt very raw and vulnerable for the first few days, and I remember how naked my eyes looked; how dark my under-eye shadows were. The wind and rain and sun were harsher.
The contacts met with mixed reaction. My stepdad didn't like them - I think because he was scared of who I might become minus my handy-dandy boy repellents. My best friend, who also wore glasses, thought I had betrayed the secret society of glasses-wearers - that I was giving in to peer pressure. Someone in my class told me I no longer looked 'smart.' I didn't care. I could wear eye make-up! I could wear non-prescription sunglasses! I could walk in the rain without needing a tiny pair of windscreen wipers! And, most importantly, I could use other things to define my appearance (which, like it or not, is often taken as the first indicator of personality).
I still feel like I wear glasses. I push imaginary specs up my nose all the time. When I draw pictures of myself, I instinctively draw them with glasses. Inside, I am still the nerdy 'brain' with the pudding-bowl haircut, braces and enormous plastic specs. Now liberated by contact lenses, I talk about how much I hate my glasses, how ugly I look with them on. My husband has tried to convince me that I actually don't look that bad, but I have never believed him (still don't).
And I'm wearing a pair today. Not prescription, yet, but it was still surprisingly hard to wear them in front of people again.
I've been thinking a lot about my younger self lately. What would she think of me now? Would she be pleased with how I've turned out? All this thinking has turned into a sort of tenderness towards younger Andrea. I want to go back in time and tell her that she isn't as ugly as she thinks; that school doesn't last forever; and that she will find friends who are like her. Eventually. I think that is why I was drawn to these glasses: a pair as enormous and prominent as my old ones. I don't think I am ever going to stop being the Girl with the Big Glasses inside, but perhaps I can take back some of the power; wear them by choice, not by necessity. Be proud of them. Maybe.
Did any of you wear glasses when you were younger? What was your experience? Do you still wear them?
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