four eyes

I've worn glasses since I was a very young girl.  I can remember sitting with my face shoved in the TV in order to see the picture.  I also remember the blackboard at school going gradually more blurry as the teacher moved me closer and closer because my grades were starting to fall and no one could figure out why.

Finally someone figured out I was losing my eyesight.  Or rather, I needed corrective lenses.  Mom actually let me pick out the glass frames I wanted, and I picked either a pink or blue pair with silver glitter in them (I can't remember which pair came first, but I eventually had worn both colors).  Even then I loved bling.

And miracle of miracle, I could see again!  It was wonderful!  I could read a book farther away than three inches from my face, and I could see leaves on trees, and details in pictures again.

But I HATED those glasses.  They made me, an already quite shy and quiet girl, feel like I had a purple horn sticking out of the middle of my forehead. 

So I would wear the glasses to school, then take them off, and put them back on before I got home.  I left them off as much as possible, because I felt ugly with them on.  I WAS ugly with them on.  It was a stigma I was determined I would not have to bear.

Until the day Vicky and I walked home from school through a field.  I got home, and Mom asked me where my glasses were. 

I HAD FORGOTTEN TO PUT THEM BACK ON!  I reached into my pocket to get them and put them on, and NO GLASSES! 

I panicked.  And Mom was furious.  That may have been the day she chased me around the house with a yardstick, I'm not sure.  I do remember I just got one whack from it.  First, because I think I wore her down running so long, and second, because it broke in half.  (Yardsticks make crappy rods to beat your child with.)

Then Dad got home and Mom told him about it and we ALL went to the field to look for the glasses.  And Vicky found them.  And got a quarter for finding them.  It made me angry because I WAS THE ONE WHO HAD TO WEAR THOSE UGLY THINGS.  I resented Vicky for a long time for being the savior of those glasses.  But I never took my glasses off again.  Mainly because I knew Mom would kill me if I did.

Then the other night, I was laying in bed, glasses off and trying to go to sleep.  I had been without internet connection for about a week at that point.  So I am pretty sure I was in IDT's by then (internet delirium tremens).  But I had maintained my cool, and no one knew how much I missed Twitter, Facebook, and blogging.

As I laid there looking at the ceiling, I saw a light on the ceiling.  Now there is a red light over Steve's side of the bed, a nifty little thing that lets him look overhead to see what the temperature outside is and what time it is.  I really don't know why anyone would care what the outside temperature is while they are in bed, but it's his toy.  I can't see it anyway, just a red smear across the ceiling.

But I had a white light over my head.  Spooky.  I thought the problem I have been having with my right eye had finally developed into a retinal tear.  I lost my cool.  Told Steve I thought I was losing my eyesight for good because all I could see was a light on the ceiling (I could actually see more than that but I was in panic mode by then).  I was ready to go to the hospital, certain I would be blind for life.

Me: Steve, I think I am going blind.
Steve: why do you think that?
Me: because I see a light on the ceiling over the bed.
Steve: (sounding disgusted) that's because there IS a light over the bed.
Me: (deflated)...oh....

So I am still only half blind.  Blind enough the optometrist told me when they test my vision they start backing up and holding up fingers.  Blind enough to wear contacts, AND reading glasses at the same time.  Blind enough that Steve said if he had a couple old fashioned Coke bottles, he'd cut the bottoms out of them and get me a seeing eye dog.

But not so blind I can't see a UFO shining over my head on the ceiling.

I was so relieved Steve saw the same UFO that I laughed out loud for about 15 minutes.  Steve grunted, rolled over and went back to sleep amid my peals of laughter.

So I won't tell him the lizard he's been running from for days is in the house.  The lizard he fears was in our bedroom last night.

I think it was a lizard.  I can't be sure.  I had my glasses off.