For almost as long as I can remember, I have not been able to see well. I don’t remember if there were any red lights that went off to my parents that suggested my eyes were bad. I know I was clumsy as a little boy, I always sported a fresh bruise on my leg but I don’t think I ever walked into a door or missed too many steps going down the stairs. I just did normal, traditional, all-American boy stuff like fall off fences or out of cars.I do remember when I was so young and impressionable I thought glasses were cool. I saw older kids wearing glasses and thought, “I need to get myself some of them there glasses.” To me, when I was younger, glasses were kind of like braces. I used to pray to God and Jesus every night too I give me messed up teeth just so I could wear braces. I thought braces looked cool and were more of a fashion statement as opposed to corrective dental work. The same held true for glasses. At the time, nobody had glasses in my class and if I could get a pair then in some way I would distinguish myself from the rest of the class.
In first grade, our class had to get a brief eye exam by the school nurse. I remember sitting out in the hall in one of those small schoolhouse chairs, putting my face into an old box to read some letters. I remember thinking to myself, “If I do bad then maybe I can get some glasses.” You know what I did, or at least what I thought I did? I failed the eye exam intentionally. I was 7 years old and I was attempting to manipulate the system so I could wear some glasses and look cool. I thought for sure I could see fine and eventually somebody would know my eyes were fine and prevent me from getting glasses. Well, 20 years later I guess the jokes on me.
I got my glasses and was the first kid in Mrs. Van Vark’s monstrous 1st grade class of maybe 20 people to wear glasses. Just a funny little side story about my 1st grade teacher Mrs. Van Vark. I think it was the first or second day of school and I had to go to the bathroom. My teacher assumed it was number one and I neglected to tell her it was number two. I was six years old at the time and the length of that bathroom visit matched that grown up boys’ time in the bathroom 21 years later. I ended up getting in trouble and did what every six year old would do; I told my Mommy! My Mom called the teacher and the next day at school an apology was issued to me, good times at Monroe Elementary. Moving along and getting back to my story about glasses. Of course, if you have read anything I’ve ever written then you know I’m good to derail off course at least once.
Once I received my glasses it looked like a bunch of other kids started wearing glasses too. I thought I had set a trend. I did not think that glasses were going to be a part of my life at the time when I was 7 years old; I figured that one day I would outgrow them, like Velcro shoes. I’ve often wondered if I hexed myself for life by lying (remember I thought I lied on it) on that eye exam. If I had never worn glasses in the first place would my eyes ever have gone bad? Did by somehow wearing glasses for such a long amount of time ruin my vision and my eyes adjusted on their own to see? I don’t know. Those are questions that I will never know the answer to.

What I do know is that as a little boy I was hard on my glasses, real hard. I was always breaking them in ways you would never imagine. I think that we had to make monthly visits to the eye doctor to get my glasses fixed. I’d pop the nose cushions off, I’d break the frames by sticking them in my ear to get an itch, or the lenses would be scratched to the point that I could see better by not wearing my glasses. You name it and I did it to my glasses. The worst it got was when I was in 7th grade. Even as a teenager I was still finding new and more creative ways to break my glasses. In 7th grade though, my glasses were broken in so many ways that a home-fix was needed to be done while my new glasses were being ordered. I never knew just how bad I was to my spectacles until I saw my 7th grade school photo (see photo to the right). I think this was the ugliest I have ever looked and as a result not a single photo was passed out at school.
I do not know what it is like to wake up every morning and not have to put spectacles on my face to see or contacts in my eyes. People with good vision have it so good and they don’t even know it. Wearing contacts was such a pain involved in my everyday life. I wish I knew how much time I spent at the optometrist office or in the bathroom putting in contacts or fiddling with my glasses and add that time together. It most likely would add up to a month, at minimum. People with great vision have so good and I will never know what that will be like. . . Or so I thought.
Thanks to the United States Army, I will be receiving corrective surgery in three days. The process was actually quite easy. I went in for an annual eye exam and expressed interest in receiving corrective surgery. I was given some forms to fill out, a number to call to schedule an appointment, and told not to stop wearing my contacts. I went in for my consultation exam on August 21st and thought I would have to wait at least a month or two to receive the surgery. Since I am in a combat related field and we have an Afghanistan deployment looming in the near future I was pushed to the front of the list; no objections here!
To say I have a little anxiety would be an understatement. I’m not so much worried about the doctors as I’m more worried about myself. I’m worried that during the surgery I’ll have an itch on my eye or sneeze at the wrong time and the laser slice my eye in half like a light saber. All in all though, I know everything will turn out alright though. My vision will not be 100% right away so there is a good possibility that this will be my only blog for about two weeks. (Insert sad face, :( )
Above all, I am thrilled that after almost 21 years of being dependent on glasses I am FINALLY going to be able to cut the tie. To think, at one point in time, I thought glasses were cool. I had no sense of fashion then nor do I have a sense of it now.
Until next time, four-eyes out!


