The blog is a facade. I'm apparently pretty weird when it comes to real life. What do you mean you don't burst out laughing at how angry and indignified this wet koala looks a couple months after you saw it the first time? I think this has been the case since I was a child. Three things I wanted for as long as I could remember? Freckles, a broken arm cast, and glasses. I know. Most people dread even having one of the three, and I just wanted to be that weird nerd child.
My eyesight has always been top notch, despite pouring over enough books to build me a fort and several castles. But nights of using a flashlight to read under the covers and playing hide-and-seek from my mum whenever she came to check up on me resulted in my left eye being weaker than the right one.
It wasn't much of a problem until senior year of high school when I was basically hunched over my textbooks for a whole year, cramming for the college entrance exams. That was when the difference in my vision started to become a problem. I got my first pair of proper glasses several months later. I remember how giddy I was when I went to the optician, it was a childhood dream come true. I was in my colorful phase and went for a pair with green frames. It was love and they served me well for the next five years.
Around six months ago, I would get the most painful headaches whenever I studied too long - but I just marked that down to overusing my eyes in general. It didn't even occur to me that the problem might be my glasses until a couple months after. I had made note to see my doctor when I went back to Taiwan over the summer, but it flew straight over my head when I was too busy trying not to drown in paperwork.
Fast forward to a couple weeks back, I had already started busting out my glasses just a couple weeks into the start of my masters programme and again, the headaches started pounding each time. I also found it harder to focus and my eyes would feel like they were about to burst. I started panicking and wondering how bad my eyes had deteriorated and if I needed to face the fact that I needed new glasses. I remember calling my mum and her being completely furious at me, eyes were the one thing that she kept nagging me to take care of and my eyesight might be deteriorating? She then bombarded me with a dozen articles and videos on how to take care of my eyes before sighing and telling me to book an appointment with an optician.
Turns out, I still have a huge difference in my eyesight, but the results were far different from what I thought they would be. Five years ago, I was near-sighted in my left eye and far-sighted in my right. Now, my left eye is completely normal while my right eye is not only farsighted, it's also astigmatic. Crudely put, my right eye has no idea how to focus on its own when it comes to short distance, which is what I'm doing 80% of the time. I spent a good half hour like a child in a candy shop, trying on dozens of glasses before deciding to get these. I only have to wear these when I study and it's already proving to be a lot less stressful for my eyes. I guess I don't have an excuse to take a break every other sentence now.
Take care of your eyes, but if you're wearing glasses, then embrace the geek pride, darling! Please tell me I wasn't the only one that was weird and wanted red hair, freckles, glasses, and a sling when I was a kid?
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