I sat on my glasses

I sat on my glasses. It is pathetic but also understandable. The lens is chipped, and the frame is completely bent. I can’t see a foot in front of me. They are beyond repair. Doing something so preventable and stupid feels so childish. But to be fair, this wouldn’t have been an issue with different genes.

Sometimes when I wake up and open my eyes, I enjoy being blanketed by blurriness. The world is clearly unclear. Maybe it is comforting because I associate blindness with bedtime. Or it feels like the continuation of a hazy dream. “Ignorance is bliss,” I say, when I’m not able to pick out the details of my room. I like looking at the mirror without glasses, my complexion is great.

Sometimes when I wake up and open my eyes, my surroundings are clear and sharp. For a moment I believe in miracles, have a rush of excitement, feel a sense of wonder. I have been cured by a divine being overnight—this is incredible⁠—I am FREE from my eye crutches. Then I blink once more⁠—oh SHIT, run, get those contacts out⁠—ouch.

My grandma always had perfect vision. One time she went to the theater with her sister. She found the show terrible. The plot was fine but everything else was not. The costumes were dirty and scrappy, the actors were ugly (the makeup didn’t save them). Her sister forgot her glasses and loved the play.

Speaking to people without glasses is horrible. You stare at their eyes but don’t know if you are making eye contact. Reading facial expressions becomes difficult. Clear eyesight had made me appreciate the small emotions people display by ever so slightly by wrinkling their eyes, pursing their lips, moving their eyebrows. Even when my mom is yelling at me it’s tough to believe she is mad because maybe she is smiling.

Sometimes when I am driving with glasses, I push them down my nose, and drive glassesless⁠—just for a little bit. To see if I could manage in case of an emergency (if I sat on my glasses for example). I then say I would still be able to drive in that condition but I would be lying to myself. The streets look how they would in an anti drunk driving commercial.

I typed this with my face uncomfortably close to the monitor.