Dear Spectacles

Dear Spectacles,

I hope this gets to the right person, because there's always the risk that this will get sent to the Spectacles family, who are always causing a ruckus and embarrassing themselves in public. They are so embarrassing, actually, that I have nothing to say to them - by letter or otherwise. So, instead, I hope this gets to you, Spectacles, because I am so appreciative of the way you correct my vision.

I have bad eyes. Terrible eyes. Of everybody I know that is even close to my age, my eyes are the worst. It's just the unfortunate grace of God that I am so amazing in every way except my deficient vision. To try to make it clear (no pun intended) to those that have decent-to-normal vision: I am currently sitting in my bedroom at my desk. The lights are off, but it is daytime, and there is light coming in through my one, small basement window. With you on my face, I can look at my wall about 15 feet away from me and pretty clearly see the outlines of the continents on my 5-foot-wide world map. When I take you off, I can barely tell that there is some sort of poster on the wall.

Pretty bad, eh? But this is the miracle of it all: because of you and your cousin Contacts, it just doesn't really matter. In spite of the fact that I have a major physical defect that would have cost my ancestors their lives at a young age, my life is normal to extra-normal. Instead of dying violently at the hands of a predator I cannot even see - or from starvation because I can't see well enough to find food or hunt - I am perfectly capable of attracting a mate (well, not PERFECTLY, I guess) and forwarding my genes to the next generation. Because of YOU, Spectacles, I can pass on my physical deformity to my kids.

A thousand years ago, I would have no chance to have kids. It's hard to believe, isn't it? And really - I owe you thanks for the fact that I exist at all. Since both of my parents also have terrible vision, it is unlikely that either of them would have survived to a reproductive age without your help, as well. Pretty incredible.

But big picture aside, you still make a HUGE difference in my life. Now, to be honest, your cousin Contacts spends much more time with me and gives me more DIRECT benefits. Contacts helps me play sports and go out into the world and pretend I'm cool (because glasses still aren't so cool unless you're a hipster). Contacts also allows me to drive more comfortably (because I don't have real peripheral vision with you on). However, all of these things are indirectly thanks to you. Without advances in you technology, your cousin wouldn't even exist - and, therefore, all of said benefits wouldn't exist, either.

Getting beyond all that, you help me in other ways, as well. At the end of a long day of work (and I tell you, as this school year slowly rolls to a close, the days are LONG), nothing feels better than to come home, take out your cousin, and put you on. I've come to associate relaxation and rest with having you on. This is because the only times I wear you are when I'm just chilling at home. On the weekends when I have no immediate plans to go anywhere. At night after work when I am officially in for the rest of the evening. Whenever I'm planning on staying in my house and hiding from the world (because I don't like interacting with other human beings without Contacts), you are there.

So I have conditioned myself to automatically start relaxing when I am wearing you. You signify my leisure time, and - believe you me - I appreciate it.

Also, after a long enough time of wearing your cousin, my eyes start to dry out something furious, and it's just so uncomfortable. So when I take them out to put you on, it's pure Heaven. When I have a headache from the effects of Dehydration, all I can think about is getting home to take out Contacts and put you on - and it's instant mitigation of the pain.

See? You make my life better in so many ways. Your cousin may enable me to lead an active lifestyle that I simply wouldn't be a capable of, otherwise, but YOU are a key element of the routine that keeps me sane. And it wouldn't do me much good to be able to have an active lifestyle if I wasn't sane enough to appreciate it.

So - thank you, my friend. Thank you for making so much possible in my world (including . . . my world).

Seeing it all so clearly,
CVT