I've worn glasses since I was about 2 or 3.
I was born with a lazy eye and had to get surgery early on. Of course it wasn't going to be enough though, I was going to have to wear glasses from that point on.
I never really had a problem with wearing them when I was little. Never put up a fight or pretended to "lose" them. They were just little wiry things on my face. Apparently, at some point, I got it into my head that I was supposed to be getting them off at age 15.
Which at that point of my life seemed like such a long way away.......
I didn't start thinking about ditching the glasses until middle school. You see, I had lost my glasses for a period of time and since they were my only pair.......I had to go to school without them. It was strange at first, not gonna lie. You get so used to have to push something up the bridge of your nose from time to time that when it's not there-it's freaky.
My classmates came to notice my glass-less face and most asked me where they were. Which resulted in my having to say that I lost them over and over again. I had a teacher ask me if I needed to move up so I could see the board and I politely told her that I was fine. I didn't bother explaining to her that I didn't need the glasses to see, it would just led to having to explain about the lazy eye and well....yeah.
After a week or two I got used to not having glasses, in fact-I kind of liked it. That is, until my eyes started to sting.
The thing is, they weren't really full on stinging-it was more of a dull sting. It was particularly evident when I was watching TV or working on the computer. I tried rubbing my eyes from time to time, but that only helped for a second. In addition to this, I noticed that my one eye for a little further from other eye than normal.
Turns out, my eyes were becoming weaker because of my lack of eye wear. Since my eyes weakening, signs of my lazy eye were showing up. It wasn't the full on lazy eye (the surgery had corrected that), it was sort of a slight lazy eye.
At this point, I was all too ready to go get some new glasses and when I finally got fitted for new ones-my eyes were in heaven. I came to realize that although I didn't need my glasses to see, I still needed them to keep my eye muscles strong.
I would like to say that after this whole experience I learned how important my glasses were and that nothing like this ever happened again-but I would be lying.
In the years after middle school, I lost my glasses a few more times, had to change perscriptions, and even broke a pair clean in half.
That's a story for another day though.
