All is Vanity

The attractive contact-lense model, formed from cut-out cardboard, was still sitting exactly where it had been on all my recent visits to the eye-doctor's office. I wondered if tinted contacts truly could make one's eyes the color of emeralds? Suppose Paul Newman's eyes were not really sky blue, or Liz' famous violet "windows of the soul" wore vanes of amethyst to shade an ordinary hazel hue? I only knew for sure how much I had wanted to wear contacts!

Due to my 50 year-old stigmatic eyes needing bifocals, I had presented the good doctor with a challenge. After several attempts with various forms of corrections, it was clear that I could choose to either navigate confidently in a world of about l0 feet circumference in which I could read with vigor and clearly see those with whom I conversed one-on-one, while living with only memories of the mountains and sky , and playing guessing games with road signs......or I could opt for enjoying the wonders of nature "out there", while waiting to recognize a voice before addressing the person sitting next to me on the couch. My options seemed a bit limited.

What had made me long to dispose of the hated eye-glasses so much, had been the evening of browsing through the old family albums, which was protocol each time the kids came home to visit. It appeared that in picture after picture down through the years, I looked much prettier without glasses. Much younger too, I noted. Of course, since I have worn glasses for at least ten years, I was much younger in those shots! But also there was the shopping trip through the department store's make-up section, where I was dazzled by the artistically painted eyes of the chic cosmetic counselors. Without glasses, their contoured eyes and long, thick lashes bade and beckoned me to imitate them. Oval mirrors perching on the clear, glass counters should have reminded me that I was no longer 25, nor were long thick lashes part of my heritage. But then fantasy was part of my heritage!

I guess, aside from not being able to see very well and often sporting blood-shot eyes, from all the misses when trying to insert the evasive, invisible saucers, there was another reason why I decided to give-up on contacts and stick with eye-glasses. It was the shock of, for the first time, being able to really see how I looked without the despised glasses. Prior to trying contact-lenses, anytime I removed my glasses, I had viewed my face without corrective lenses, resulting in a rather blurred image on the mirror... easy to imagine that it still looked young and unwrinkled , much as the album pictures portrayed me. Now, thanks to the reality check of those nasty little disks, I saw lines and wrinkles and bags, begging to be disguised.

I wonder how I'd look in those burgundy over-sized Cheryl Tiegs frames, perhaps with graduated, rose-colored lenses... or maybe the Sophia Loren line, shaped like cat-eyes, in shades of green... or perhaps. . .