I started wearing glasses when I was in first grade. Needless to say, the styles in 1971 were not quite as expansive as they are now. They were made of heavy plastic, that covered most of my face. The optometrist that fit my facial accessory looked like a door-to-door vacuum salesman, and I will never forget the way he lunged at me to put the glasses over my small ears.As I got older my eyes got progressively worse and within a couple of years was wearing glasses every day. The lenses were thick, and I always had a spare pair, to use for sports, which were especially ugly but could withstand the rigor of contact.
Eventually I got contact lenses and the world became a better place for me because I did not have to worry about foggy and cracked lenses, broken frames and a worn out bridge digging into my nose. I continued to wear glasses sporadically but began to notice how technology had made it's way into optometry, and once again began to enjoy glasses.
Recently I learned that for the first time in forty years my eyes had not gotten worse. The only caveat was that I needed prescriptive glasses for reading. I accepted this news with enthusiasm. I finally got the chance to wear glasses (over my contacts) sporadically and when needed, I could put them on my forehead and walk around! As a side note, they really help me read and I don't feel like I'm taking a vision test every time I pick up a book, or aspirin container trying to figure out what the hell it says,
Not only did it help me read, but I was able to feel like a person who could choose when to wear his glasses and not worry about a huge foreign object, like a car, running into me when they weren't on. I accept this as my lifetime achievement award. I am able to reach new levels of cool because I can pick and choose which pair to pick up. But most importantly, I can take them off and still see, which is something I had never been able to do.