Wink Wink

I suck at picking out eyeglasses. I can’t see how they look on me (because I need glasses to see). I want them to be fashionable and reflect my own personal style (whatever that is), and they need to last a long time because I use them as a backup for my contact lenses. I’m asking for a lot aren’t I?

I was sure I’d picked out the perfect glasses, until they arrived.

Yikes, they were too wide for my face, my bifocal prescription didn’t work well in them, and they accentuated my droopy right eye by completely hiding one eyebrow making me look like a Cyclops. I’m not exaggerating. I was despondent. How could I have gone so wrong, and more importantly would I be living with this reminder of my incompetence for years to come?

I was reading a book on creativity and one of the exercises seemed perfect for my predicament. It suggested writing about a problem and exaggerating it all out of proportion (that’s where the Cyclops came from).

Pen poised, I began lamenting my woes. I wrote about being a Cyclops and the droopy eye thing, suggesting that we spend half of our day upside down to counteract the effects of gravity’s daily tug, and about how nothing could camouflage my freakish disfigurement.

I entertained the idea of plastic surgery to raise the brow up. I suggested destroying all mirrors, but then realized that I would probably still search out my reflection in spoons or in pools of water. Finally, I decided that we're all imperfect and hoped to leave it at that.

Doing this exercise did move me to a new place. Propelled into action, I propped open my droopy eye and telephoned my doctor pleading for a second chance at choosing glasses. He consented and took the hideous ones back, and I selected a new pair, which I’m hoping (fingers crossed) will be great.

I made sure that my new glasses would minimize the Cyclops effect by selecting a frame that showed as much of my droopy eyebrow as possible. But just in case, I made an appointment with a plastic surgeon for next month. It never hurts to keep your options open. Wink Wink!