I've Joined The Blind Side
I was once a clear eyed man, now I need to rely on eye wear to survive.
If you've been reading my articles for a while now, you would recall last fall when I wrote about putting contact lenses in my eyes for the very first time. It was my very first time I had ever jammed those lenses into my eyes, all for the sake of completing my Black Panther Halloween costume. Well, we are journeying back to the land of the blind because I just got the worst news imaginable. I've been forced to purchase glasses.
Let's backtrack a bit so everyone knows where I am coming from. In all my nineteen years of living, I've never needed glasses. My mom used to say to me that I took her 20/20 vision from her when I was born. Now I take care of my eyes. I only stared at the sun three or four times when I was a kid. Not an excessive amount, just the usual glance a child does out of wonderment. And sure, maybe I should not sit so close to the tv. But technically that didn't destroy my eyes. Contrary to popular belief, sitting close to the television does not ruin your eyes (Kidshealth.org). They do strain them, however, but we strain our eyes every day when looking at things for too long.
All joking aside, I realized as I was getting older my eyes were going to need glasses eventually. This was further solidified by my old eye doctor who said I'll need them when I am an adult eventually. This was three years ago, so I opted out of relying on glasses then. I was totally fine, I had 17/17 vision, just above the threshold. So, what happened? I believe my eyes were ruined in one possible way. It was when I hit the back of my head in October.
It was early October 2018; I was hanging out in my mod with my mod mates. We were talking and what not and for some reason, I decided to just lay back on the couch in the common area. I am usually good at judging the placement of things in a given area, so I was confident I was not going to hit my head. Until I did. I hit the back of my head on the wooden armrest of the couch as I tried to lay back on it. And it was a hard hit. I felt a whole nerve of pain on the back of my head. As I tried to salvage what was left of my dignity at the time, I decided to take some ibuprofen. You see I believe this incident would be the defining moment for my eyes. I may sound like a paranoid scientist, too stubborn to accept I need glasses because I am getting older, but that's beside the point. The couch somehow hit a nerve with my nerve connection to my eye, injuring my vision.
I started to notice more recently this semester the effects of this. For example, when I am in the dining halls, I like to look around and survey my surroundings. It's an old habit but I personally need to see who's coming into the room. A trick I picked up from my step-dad. So, when it was starting to become more difficult to read faces from afar, I took it as a sign that maybe my vision needs some training. Like eating more carrots kind of training. But it was too late, by then my mom had scheduled me an eye appointment and I was basically forced to get glasses. My eye doctor summed it up like this. I could go around and live my life without the need for glasses, as I only needed them for certain situations. Or I could go the easy route and just get the glasses. I was honestly considering accepting the risks and walk around with warped vision. My philosophy is like this: "I may not be able to see the street sign that says Fulton Ave., but I know that that's Fulton Ave!" But I knew my mom would not like that idea so I decided to just get the glasses.
The other eye doctors helped me picked out my glasses and they were all pretty nice. We were stuck in between a couple but eventually, we settled on a pair. My mom wasn't too keen on them because she didn't like the idea of the eye doctors picking them out because they might not really have a "style". The way I see it is that I am only going to use these glasses for emergencies. Like in the old Batman cartoons when the caped crusader needs to pull out a pair of binoculars, my glasses will be my binoculars in a sense.
Am I stubborn? Yes. But I like living life a little bit dangerously. However, if the girl I like approves of my glasses, then I might consider wearing them more often.
