For Eyes

My parents used to think I was a little bit slow, or that there was something off. I just couldn’t find the Easter eggs.

We have a home video of an Easter egg hunt filmed when I was two. I was all smiles and wispy hair, totally oblivious of the sense of propriety that comes with lacy dresses and fancy shoes. I whirled right past those eggs like there was nothing there. No matter how many clues my relatives gave me I just waltzed right by. Inevitably my lanky Uncle Karl would bound into the shaky camera frame and conjure an egg out of a grass patch next to me. I would gasp with astonishment and clap my hands with glee. And the rest of my family would think, “But you were standing right next to it!”

It turns out I just needed glasses. Even at that age my eyes were so bad that people were different shaped blurs and details were a thing unknown to me.

My first pair were round with purple frames. I hated wearing them and would “forget” them all over the house, leaving them on tables and on the kitchen counter. Sometimes I would go back for them but most of the time my mother would hold them out, hand on hip, and watch me put them back on. It was a war, and I was losing.

Eventually I became used to them (I surrendered) and it began to feel strange when they weren’t on my face. I was forever getting new lenses and new frames, mostly because my eyes were rapidly deteriorating but partially because I kept getting hit in the face with basketballs.

In sixth grade I became convinced that I would look much better (and therefore feel much better) if I had contacts instead of glasses. My friend Hillary had them and she seemed happy. My mother, unfortunately, was adamantly opposed to this idea and told me that I was too young. You can imagine my indignation when my little sister was allowed contacts when she was in sixth grade. The unfairness was assuaged just a little bit by the fact that I received my first pair of contacts the next year.

Contacts and I had a blissful relationship until the middle of 11th grade. My eyes felt a bit uncomfortable one day, and I noticed that they looked red. After a few days of this, I went to my mom. She took one look at me and said, “Yup, that’s pink eye all right.”

And so the contacts were banished. I was forced to wear my glasses, which brought a whole host of problems that I never remembered having when I wore them all the time. My glasses prescription wasn’t quite up to par, so the classroom boards were fuzzy. I had to figure out how to apply makeup without looking like I was half raccoon. I ended up hiding behind my hair and hoping that no one noticed my red, watery eyes.

It cleared up, of course, but it created a precedent. Every couple of months I have a pink eye breakout. At least now, after two or three years of practice, I know how to handle it.

Throw out contacts, throw out contact case, get new eye solution, glasses, glasses, glasses, pink eye drops, eye redness drops, saline solution drops, don’t you dare put in new contacts until you’re completely sure it’s gone, you know how expensive they are. If I stick to my regiment and if Lady Luck is feeling generous, the pink eye will be gone in a week.

I had a recent bout that resulted in the loss of a contact case and two pairs of contacts (I didn’t wait long enough). It was as terrible as all the other ones. My eyes felt and looked like someone had rubbed them with a piece of steel wool, and I was forced to wear my glasses. How I hate wearing my glasses. They make my face feel uncomfortable and I develop tunnel vision because all I can see out of the edges of my eyes are blurry colors. My boyfriend (teasingly) calls me Four-Eyes and I dislike the way I look with them despite the compliments I get on the electric blue frames.

I was so relieved when I could wear my contacts again. Fed up with looking like a zombie from 28 Days Later every four months, I picked up some hydrogen peroxide contact solution to make absolutely sure that I wouldn’t get pink eye for as long as the bottle didn’t run out.

“Why didn’t you just pick up some regular hydrogen peroxide?” my boyfriend asked. “I’m sure it would be cheaper.”

I pointed to the bottle. “But look, it says ‘For Eyes.’ What if the other hydrogen peroxide is too strong and I burn my eyeballs?”

He shot me a look. “Jackie, it’s just water with one oxygen molecule removed. You’d be fine.”

“Well, this one says ‘For Eyes,’” I insisted. He shrugged his shoulders and let me be.

He’s probably right, of course, but I don’t relish the possibility of burning my retinas out of my head. I’ll stick to my over-priced hydrogen peroxide, thank you, and pray to the gods I don’t have a pink eye relapse. After all, I don’t want to be a Four-Eyes.

Advertisement