Wednesday 4 March 2015

Day 15: Glasses vs. Contact Lenses


I have never worn contact lenses.
I've never really had a desire to.
Some people want to be rid of glasses, of contacts, so completely that they take lasers to their eyes in an effort to permanently negate the need for them.
I on the other hand like wearing glasses. I like the way I look wearing them (let alone the fact that I can actually see what I look like when I wear them)
In the same way that I like make-up, I like being able to fashion a face that I want to present to the world, and my glasses play a part in that.
When I was first prescribed glasses I jumped at the chance. The same happened with braces back in my early teens. In both cases I was not in dire need of their functions, but still I eagerly accepted the offer.
A chance to alter my appearance in a non-invasive way, a chance to change something about myself and to impose some kind of autonomy.
I make no secret of the fact that body image is something I have struggled with massively over the past decade, and well before that too. I get frustrated and at times bored of some of those thought patterns that even now have a tendency to creep back in, so much so that as a compromise I opt to try and change something about myself that is at least somewhat removed from that familiar ache of feeling entirely ill at ease within your own skin. Hair colour, hair cut, piercing, new make-up: small steps to alter the narrative, to nudge the familiar sequence off course. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but we can all attest to the fact that even now it's fun to play dress-up: an escape from all sorts, not just the dark, heavy stuff.
I have left it too late to blog again and as midnight approaches along with the prospect of a 4:30am wake-up call, it's high time I slipped my glasses off the bridge of my nose and allowed my eyes to rest as they seem so intent upon doing. Simple. Chalk that one up as another win for glasses.


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