right 7.0 left 4.75

If the numbers above make sense to you, then you probably wear contact lenses, too. 

Inspiration for this post comes from my friend Science Geek, a fellow lens-wearer. 

I've worn contacts more than half my life.  Now, as I grow further into my era of reading glasses (I own about $7-worth of glasses, all purchased at Dollar Tree.  I also own $2-worth of sunglasses from the same source), I often wear contacts and glasses at the same time.  Remember this picture? We are both wearing contact lenses.

This is the way Earthgirl often sees her parents looking at her. (Note - the sky looked just like that right out of the camera - isn't it lovely?)

I started wearing old-fashioned contact lenses in high school because glasses just bugged me. Let me tell you, you had to be dedicated to wear the original hard, non-gas-permeable contact lenses!  PB switched to contacts in his mid-20's after his glasses got knocked off his face once too often in a basketball game. 

Those old-fashioned hard lenses had one advantage over today's wonderful, gas-permeable, high-moisture lenses: you could pop one out and into your mouth for a quick rinse.  Shhhh, don't tell the eye doc!  He/She will tell you all about eye infections.  I'm sure eye infections happen; I just never had one in 8 years of...well,...spit-polishing.

So, after reading SG's story, I got to thinking  about contact lens-related mishaps.  I've dropped lenses down drains and on the floor, but not as often as you might think.  These absent-minded mistakes happen more often for me:


Polishing glasses while driving.  Not a good idea.  I am used to taking off my sunglasses for a quick shirt-polish on a straight-away, and tend to do the same thing absentmindedly when my contacts are out and  I am wearing my glasses.  This results in everything around me going BLUR. I replace them in a hurry, smears and all. 

Putting both lenses in one eye.  I am blinking, trying to focus my right eye, which is overcorrected, while trying to find the left lens that I think I have dropped.  After 30+ YEARS of contact lens-wearing, I now know to try searching in my right eye for the left lens.


Putting the wrong lens in the wrong eye.  I catch this one pretty quickly, since my right eye is way more blind than my left.  I'm usually blinking my right eye, trying to focus better as I put in the left lens, then as I put in the left lens, everything starts swimming...whoa...that ain't right...  PB's eyes are much closer to each other in nearsightedness, so he often runs around for awhile trying to blink a bit more clarity in before he tries switching the lens...there...that's the ticket...

Putting a lens in flipped inside out.  Blink...ouch...blink...that ain't right...

All that said, I am SO thankful to live in this day when my vision can be corrected to near-20-20.  Sometimes I think about what my life would have been like if I had lived a few hundred years ago.  My world would have been limited to the things very close to me.  My household would have to be well-organized and simple.  I could still hand-sew, if I carefully placed my needle where I could find it.  I would have trouble recognizing friends until they were close.  I would wear a permanent squint, though I'd not see it if I glanced at a mirror.  I might have many more headaches than I have now.  Though I appreciate and even feel nostalgia for the olden days, I think God for all He has given us NOW.