Perfect glasses.

I need new glasses. I’ve needed new glasses for almost a year now, but a hairline fracture has started in the right lens of these and it’s forcing the issue. This past week, I’ve spent a lot of time on glasses websites shopping for the right new pair. I thought that would be fun, but damned if it isn’t a little bit upsetting.

Too green

I’ve had my current glasses for at least six years; maybe longer. When I got them, they were a backup for contact lenses so I wouldn’t have to travel with lens paraphernalia, and just generally to have a simpler option. They are so perfect for me that I switched to wearing them pretty exclusively almost immediately. I still have one unworn set of disposable contacts in the medicine cabinet – probably expired by now.

OMG TOO MUCH GLASSES ABORT ABORT

This pair of glasses arrived in my life at a time when a lot of pieces of the way I present myself kind of all came together. I started dyeing my hair crazy colors and cutting it in the early version of the wedge bob I have now. I finally figured out that short skirts and cardigan sweaters were far more flattering on my body than the long hippie skirts and giant sweaters I’d been wearing for years. And I got these sexy, dark red glasses with the narrow lenses and the scrollwork pattern on the arms. They suited me perfectly, and I felt the most like myself – the most right in my clothes and my hair and my body – that I’d ever felt in my life. Peak Kateri, basically. So yeah, I love these glasses.

Good red, but too big.

Adding to my distress over this process is the fact that when I got my current pair of glasses, it was pretty much a 30-second process. I spotted them from halfway across the room, I tried them on, they were perfect, DONE. I kind of assumed it would be similar this time around. I thought to myself, yes, these were fantastic, but it’s time to move on and there will be another fantastic pair of glasses. A lateral move to Peak Kateri, continued. Alas, not so. My options are limited because my insurance doesn’t cover eye care, so I’m trying to stick to a narrow window of providers. I’m about to struggle through a third home try-on of things that I know before they even arrive are not quite right. I am trying some that I know are too narrow because they’re a good color. And one in a good color that doesn’t come in the right shape.

These weird two-color ones are kind of growing on me.

I know I’ll find a good pair eventually, and then I won’t think about it again for another six or seven years. But in the meantime, I’m surprised to find how much of a difference it makes to the way I see myself – looking at my face in the wrong glasses. Probably they don’t look all that wrong.to other eyes (except for that one giant owl-eyed pair), but wow, it makes a difference to me.