"I am going to blind myself." I kept repeating to myself one Saturday night. For context, recently I tried on some colored contacts for a cosplay project. I was graced by God and do not need the assistance of corrective lenses. I did not realize how ignorant I was to the actual struggle with contacts.

I was born nineteen-years ago and in all my years of life, I have never needed glasses. My mother always claims that I stole her eyesight as she too had 20/20 vision prior to having me. Over the years I really mistreated my eyes. I always sat in front of the television while at my grandparent's house. Or I would constantly attempt to stare directly at the sun to see if it was actually as bright as people claimed it to be. I am still in awe to this day that I am not a blind man using his walking stick around campus. But surprisingly I've noticed over the past two or so years my fascination for eyes has grown.

As a writer/filmmaker/artist (Egotistical much?) there are some aesthetics that I love when creating new pieces of arts. Besides scars and battle wounds, there is one thing I just love to write about. Eyes. So much emotion can be expressed with eyes. I recently noticed my admiration for these things when I repurchased "The Incredibles" on Blu-Ray back in June. As a kid, you never notice the finer details in a piece of work.

Mr. Incredible from "The Incredibles" (2004) youtu.be/MVL49ejn4jE

I love the way Mister Incredible expresses his eyes. It makes the character very relatable for me nowadays because I constantly use my eyes to express my emotions. When someone says something stupid for example or a bad pun, I am known to give them a glare. Some people have even said it is my signature character trait. Other times I look off-screen to an invisible camera like Jim from "The Office." I know there isn't a camera in my presence but other eye glancers can relate. When something so stupid requires an eye glance, then you are obligated to glance your eyes as if a camera is present.

Jim from "The Office" (2005) media1.giphy.com

With all that history out of the way, this is where the meat of the article commences. Like I mentioned earlier, one Saturday night I decided it was time to try on my colored contacts I ordered from the UK. These were the cheapest pairs I could find (Around $20) and Google gave me bi-daily updates on the location of my package which increased my hype for the eyewear. So they finally arrived and I thought to myself: "This will be easy to put on." However, I would soon eat my own words, unfortunately.

My mod-mate "Brad" was calling me out on my cockiness with these contacts. I will admit I was a bit cocky. Only because films and television usually make putting on contacts look so easy. We sat down and put on YouTube tutorials on the tv on how to put on these colored contacts. And with each passing video, my cockiness slowly diminished. I was still confident that I could put them in, but the reality was setting in.

The voice in the back of my head was saying the following: "You idiot. You are one of the worst people in the world to be trying on these contacts! It takes you ten minutes to open each eye just to put a drop of eye drop solution in."

After my conversation with my psyche I contacted a professional- My RA. Nick the RA came in and assisted with me putting on my contacts. We walked over to the bathroom mirror and practiced just trying to touch my eye. The thought didn't occur to me I would need to practice touching my actual eye. A look of horror swept my face as Nick extended his eyelids open to demonstrate putting on contacts. I could see the curvature of his actual eyeball! The voice at the back of my head during this whole ordeal decided to give me some confidence.

"Well if you make yourself blind, I bet girls would love helping out a blind man." We practiced putting the contact on my finger and making sure it was drenched in solution. After twenty minutes the first contact was in my eye and "oof" it was something. Nick asked me if it stung and I replied saying it did. He was reassured because apparently it's supposed to sting the first time you put it in. Brad had to get the second one in because I was taking too long. And then I was out. I want to say it only took twenty to thirty minutes, but I started at 5:00 pm and next time I checked my phone it was closer to 6:00 pm.

So here I was with purple contacts in my eyes. It was hard to notice because I have dark brown eyes. But in my defense, the website did say it worked with all eye colors. I went out in public with them but no one noticed. It took maybe thirty minutes for the purple to show but at that point, I was already tired of them. But then I remembered, I had to take these out at some point. I had to ask my friends Mady and Maddy (Yes they are both named Maddy just spelled differently) to help me take them out.

So now I have two contacts that personally, I would love to put back on just so my twenty bucks don't go to waste but at the same time, I do not want to go through that entire ordeal again. Next time I want colored eyes, I'll just stick to the community "snapchat" filters.