Lens Restrictions

It always gives me intense gratification to know that someone else out there has experienced some of the things I thought were peculiar to me. This inspires me to share some of my daily life experiences, hoping that either you will relate or become more understanding of glasses-wearers. 

If you wear, or have ever worn glasses, you will understand some of these issues. 

1. Wearing them on your head to hold your hair back, and then twisting backwards to catch them when you forget and tip your head back too quickly. 

2. Having non-glasses wearers steal your glasses off your face or off the table to try them on...then patiently listening to their complaints of a headache, and trying to explain what your vision looks like without  your glasses. 

3. Squinting without your glasses and having people concernedly ask you if you are ok. 

4. Wearing your glasses for weeks, then contacts for a day, and when you wear your glasses again the next day hearing people ask you if you've always had glasses. 

5. Having people pretend to poke you in the eye which is super funny to them because they think your glasses-shield is invincible. 

6. Getting in the habit of pushing your glasses up (because you stretched them out by wearing them as a headband), then doing it one day when you forgot you are wearing contacts...

7. Getting halfway through a shower and wondering why your vision is starting to fog over...then realizing you are still wearing your glasses. 

8. Looking at a picture of yourself and wondering why people still like you with those huge plastic windshields on your face. 

9. Turning your head quickly and getting vertigo because your glasses slipped around and made you think the world was slipping around. 

10. Having better-sighted people feel sorry for your life because you can't see as well as them without your glasses. 

11. Opening the oven and looking in too quickly then backing up with completely fogged-over glasses. 

12. The joys of playing in an orchestra and the top of your frames completely blocking out the conductor. Now you either look above them at a distant blurry conductor or spastically push them back up at every rest in the music. Or you take them off completely and can't see your music either. 

13. Or you wear contacts. Then people watch you put them in or take them out and either run away squealing, or stare in morbid curiosity as if they get to watch you do a very private, personal, and slightly risky ritual. 

There's more, I'm sure. 

What sighted people don't realize is that those of us with poor vision don't actually miss that much. The truth is that we notice more movement and the "big picture" because we are not restricted to all the fine details. I can't see details unless they are close, but that doesn't mean I can't see very well. I see a lot. I notice a lot of things that better sighted people don't catch. But maybe that's just my hyper-observantness. Ehh. Anyways. 

I think it's that way with any shade of disability; it can simply be the impetus to help the person hone their other abilities. So don't feel sorry for people with glasses or other issues; ask them what other senses they have perfected instead.