New York, New Glasses

I got glasses about one month after we moved to New York.

I had worn contacts for about a dozen years before then, but they were irritating my eyes so much right before we moved that I could barely stand to keep them in all day. My eyes kept twitching-- probably a result of the stress of moving and the barrels of cleaning solution I seemed to be using to sanitize our Ohio house before we left and the Brooklyn apartment that we moved into.

What's more, one of my last articles as a reporter in Springfield was about locals who used glasses as a fashion statement. As I hung out in an optometrist's office waiting to speak to the newly be-spectacled, I took a look at the offerings and liked what I saw.

So one of my first tasks as a New Yorker was to get an eye appointment and new glasses. I had them on for my first day of work and haven't looked back.

Except when I resurrected my contacts a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to wear them to Six Flags, but I wasn't sure how my eyes would handle them again after an absence of two years. So I wore them to work for two days.

I had forgotten until I got all of the questions and questioning looks that none of my current co-workers had every seen me without glasses. By contrast, few of my Ohio co-workers had every seen me without contacts.

I felt a little alter-egoish, and also a little stereotypical. Small-town girls gets big-city makeover-- who hasn't heard that story? Anyway, it's not quite as stereotypical as it seems-- I need a much better selection of shoes (among many things) before I can say I've really gotten a big-city makeover.

But it did make me think about how moving to New York, almost like moving away for college, was a chance to start again among new people, new friends. I wonder if I took advantage of it as much as I should have.