New Glasses

I picked up my new glasses last week.


The ones on the left are the new ones. The ones on the right are the old. The shapes are a bit different and the details are a bit different. But yes, both have a similar style. The same as every pair of glasses I've had since I was in high school.

I can't help it. I try on different styles and colors but they don't just work. My skin and hair are so fair that less chunky, less dark frames don't pop enough. Besides, glasses are my most permanent accessory. I don't want them to be too boring.

But what's so important about these new glasses isn't what they look like. It's what they do. They help me see. That, of course, sounds painfully obvious. Go ahead, say what you're thinking: So did the old ones, Julie.

Only here's the thing. They did. And they didn't.

When I went in for my eye exam before Christmas, I found out a startling fact. While my left lens improved my vision dramatically, my right lens actually made it considerably worse. In other words, the prescription for my right eye was wrong. Very wrong.

The doctor thinks it was botched when the lenses were made—instead of a 10, it was a 100, or something like that.

When I first put those old glasses on about two years ago, I couldn't help but say whoa. Everything was really distorted. But I was told with a dramatically different prescription that happens, and it takes the eyes as long as a week to adjust. Friends and colleagues who had glasses confirmed this fact. So I struggled through a good week feeling slightly off-kilter, then got used to the lenses.

And wore the wrong prescription. For two years.

That explains why I'd sit at my desk with my glasses on and Conservative Boy would harass me for squinting. And why although the glasses were supposed to improve my ability to read street signs and such, I still hated driving at night in places I didn't know because I couldn't read the signs at all. And it explains why when I was golfing or wearing sunglasses I just wouldn't wear my glasses and I did fine. One eye was worse, one was better (or at least less worse). Either way.

Needless to say, I was fuming that I'd gone two years with a wrong prescription. But excited about the prospect of improving my vision even more.

It did take a bit of time to get used to the new, right prescription. But we're talking an afternoon and evening, not a whole week. Now I catch myself squinting and have to stop—I don't need to, it just became habit. I also notice I look over or under my glasses a lot, which is unnecessary. Must've been a habit I picked up because somehow, subconsciously, my mind knew I sometimes saw just as well without looking through the lenses.

Ah, vision. It's nice to have you back.