new glasses

Around two weeks ago I lost my distance glasses.  When the sun is out, I’m fine because I have prescription sunglasses, and when it’s cloudy but daylight, I’m also okay because I have my medium range glasses and I can see fine just as long as I’m not trying to find my way somewhere new.  See, the thing is, with misplacing my glasses is that I knew they were hiding somewhere around the house.  And felt that the very minute I went and wasted all that money and time on purchasing a new pair, my old pair would come dancing out of their hiding place laughing at me. 

So, I put it off. 

Big mistake.  Not so bad, last week because Don was the lunch cook so he was the one to do the morning and evening drop-off and pick-up from Will’s school.  But this week, was my week to drive and even though I’ve been turning the house inside out, I still hadn’t found my glasses.  NOW if I had been thinking clearly and been a normal person, I would have just said, “Honey, I really can’t see well enough to drive at night with my mid-range glasses, could you take over the evening driving until I find my regular glasses?” Or I would have gone out and bought myself a new pair.  But I didn’t.  I was too embarrassed to ask for help.  A kick back to my childhood.  Don’t ask for help, ever.  It is a sign of weakness and will make you a target.  Always cope.  No matter what.  And I didn’t want to waste the money.

And you know what, for the first couple of days, I got lucky.  The nights were pretty clear when I had to go and I could see okay, it was Wednesday night that sucked.  It was very dark, with a huge amount driving sleet/snow falling, and to make matters worse, it had started to warm up a little bit, so there was a slight misty cloud cover rising from the road.  I was scared.  I realized how stupid I was driving with my mid-range glasses.  I wanted to pull over and call Don, but my stupid car is STILL in the god-damned shop!  So he would have no way to get to me, and Will was waiting at school and I had the only car.  So I just drove slowly and carefully, my underarms sweating in my coat.  The weather had let up a bit on the way home and I was fine. 

However, the minute the stores opened on Thursday, I marched myself down to the eyeglasses shop and chose out a new pair of glasses.  Don played hooky with his writing and came shopping too.  I guess it was such a novelty.  Meg wants to go shopping?  This I have to see!

I tried on a bunch of eyeglasses.  Most of them looked ridiculous.  And you want to know what’s weird.  I’ve always leaned towards a very conservative style of eye-wear.  Practical. 

Not today! 

I started out trying on the sort of plain, old-faithfuls, but they didn’t look good.  The dark frame colors were too strong against my face.  At first I couldn’t figure out why everything looked so bad, and then I realized that I’ve change a lot in the last few months.  That whole hospital/caring for/not-able-to-save-my-friend thing doubled my grey hair count.  Seriously, I’m not joking.  And so with my hair color so much whiter around my face, I needed a lighter colored pair of glasses.  But most of the lighter glasses didn’t look right with my coloring.  BUT THEN...I saw this pair of light blue and black glasses with zig-zags of blue color on the sides and...get this...a sprinkling of RHINESTONES where the sides wrapped around to the front!  Nothing I’d ever try on or wear ever in my life!  And yet I did.  And they made me happy.  Especially when I turned around and said to Don, “What about these?” and saw the shock and horror on his face!  I could almost hear him praying, “Oh god, please no!” Which for some odd reason, made me feel even more daring and dangerous.

“I like ‘em!” I said.  He laughed nervously, not knowing if I was joking or not.  And I was half joking.  Nobody would EVER take me seriously wearing those glasses.  Especially not AUTHOR seriously.  Rhinestones and blue zig-zags?  “Yes, well, you know, she was an actress.  You know how tacky and flashy those types are.”

But as loudly as I was hearing those disapproving voices, I was also hearing this defiant voice inside who said, “F__k it.  Who cares what other people think.  You are approaching fifty my dear.  You have earned the right to wear anything you damned well please.” And I plopped these crazy blue glasses into the “consider” pile. 

The pile got smaller and smaller until there were just two pair left.  A sensible pair...and the blue rhinestone extravaganza.  Don was trying to be supportive, but I could tell he was well and truly confused as to who this new Meg was.  And I knew I should get the sensible pair.  The plain and boring, I-am-an-intellectual pair of glasses, but there was something about the other that sang it’s siren song to me, and it was impossible to put them aside. 

“I’ll get them both,” I heard my mouth saying.  And I really intended to, until I heard how much it was going to cost!  GADZOOKS!  When did a pair of glasses get to be so much money?  Just the idea of spending that much in one fell swoop made me feel sweaty all over.  “Okay, I’ll only get one.”

Guess which pair I bought?  The pair that will not alienate half the world and will go with my entire wardrobe?  Or the ones that go with nothing and make me feel like it’s going to be fun to roar into my fifties?

Yup.  You guessed it. 

At least it’s not a mini-skirt, platform shoes and a red convertible.  I’ll save that to surprise Don with next week!

Posted by Meg Tilly on Friday, February 01, 2008 in Chewing the Fat

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