Fancy Coffee Friday
I love wearing my glasses. Maybe that’s a hipster tendency, but I’ve worn glasses for the last 25 years and I’m not stopping now. Contacts just aren’t the same. I own them, and they are useful when doing things like snorkeling, but out of the water I’d rather have my specs on my face. And, contact solution – even the “sensitive” kind, makes my eyeballs burn and itch. So not comfortable.
I’ve had the same pair of black and clear pink frames nearly four years. I learned as a preteen that my flesh devoured the metal used for eyeglasses, I ignored that fact for many years purchasing metal frames; I got wiser in my old age and made the intelligent switch to acrylic. I love these frames. They fit my face and my uneven ears. I know them. I have stepped into the shower forgetting they were perched on my nose as I wondered why everything was so clear on a few occasions.
This week as I took off my specs to give them a swish of the cleaning cloth, I noticed that the ear pieces were starting to turn a dull white. When your frames are mostly black, that gives you pause. I examined them and found that they were still stable. No cracks had formed, but they were aged.
Old.
My beloved Spectacles
I’d have to replace them and in my heart I ached a bit. Sure, they’re just eyeglasses, but ultimately – they have become part of me. My persona. I’d have to find another pair that fit me as well as these do.
So, why do we grow attached to “things”, mere items? My glasses are a tool that allows me to see the world with clarity, at least visually. They aren’t literally a part of me, but they feel like it. Every morning I take them from my bedside table and prop them on my face and every evening, the last thing I do is take them off and place them on my beside table.
So, what about them creates my “persona”? Why am I already mourning their loss when they are still here, upon my face? I can’t possibly be the only person so fond of a few pieces of plastic, screwed together and nearly omnipresent in my life.
Do you need or wear glasses, contacts or both?
Are you lucky enough to not require vision correction?
Do you have an item that you wear nearly every day that were it misplaced, or replaced, you’d feel lost without?
Musings of the Amusing Muse 
Got my glasses – two pair actually, but I favor one over the other and then there are my rings – the ones on the left hand that I’ve worn for over 43 years and the one on my right hand, a simple emerald with small diamonds. Funny thing is that the wedding and engagement rings remind me of my Mom, they are very similar to the ones she wore and I’ve been wearing them longer than she lived. The emerald was a gift from the bank when I had worked there for 20 years.but I like it because it is very similar to the one my Grandmother wore. She lived to be 95. The reminders of two wo special women and the tools that allow me to see well enough to read and to drive – my independence. Interesting.. hadn’t thought about either until you asked!
You know, my rings aren’t big and flashy – similar to what you wear. Every time I go to have them cleaned, I get asked about upgrading the diamonds and I ask what’s wrong with the ones already in them. The jeweler usually gets a sheepish look and says something along the lines of how small they are and surely after this many years of marriage I deserve something bigger. I just shake my head and say that I like my rings just the way they are. They aren’t flashy, but they fit me well – understated.
And I never thought of my glasses as a tool of independence, but yes, without them, I wouldn’t be able to do much.