My Self-Image Through Rose-Colored Glasses

I recently got new eyeglasses. I’ve needed corrective lenses since I was eight and a half, so this was not a new experience for me. But every time I get new frames, my image of myself changes.

My first glasses were blue cat-eyes. I was assured they were very cute. And I was so happy to be able to see better (for the first time, I could see the lines in the paneling across the room) that I accepted the way my appearance changed. Besides, I liked blue.

My second frames were also blue cat-eyes. Then those broke, and I got brown cat-eyes. By that time, I was in junior high, and I didn’t think they were cute anymore. This was the early ’70s, and I wanted wire rims like all the cool kids.

Finally, in my junior year of high school, my eyes deteriorated enough to justify new frames and lenses. I got my wire rims, and my senior picture shows me in those frames.

I wore those frames until I was twenty-one and in law school. Then I got contacts, and rarely wore any eyeglasses. That lasted for about fifteen years until I had an eye infection. I was forced to dig out my old wire rims and wear them to work.

By this time, I was a practicing attorney. The wire rims were no longer cool. So I bought horn-rimmed frames to supplement my contacts. I kept these horn-rimmed glasses on hand until my retirement. By then, the contacts were irritating my eyes and I couldn’t see out of them at computer distance. I gave up contacts and returned to wearing glasses full-time.

That was about fifteen years ago. Since then, I have worn a series of horn-rimmed frames until a month ago. This time, I bought wire rims again. The optician assured me, not that they were cool, but that they were “very pretty.” I guess he must have thought I was too old to worry about being cool.

I put my faith in him and bought the wire rims. They were expensive enough—they should be pretty. But, of course, I couldn’t see what I looked like in them without the corrective lenses in place, so I had no idea how I would look.

When I picked the glasses up a couple of weeks later, I put them on. “I look old,” I exclaimed.

“They’re lovely frames,” the optician said.

And the frames are pretty. Rose-gold metal with some etching and filigree. What’s not to like?

Nothing, except they make me look old.

I’ve worn them now for a few weeks. When I look in the mirror, sometimes I see my sixteen-year-old self with the cool wire rims.

But sometimes in the mirror, I see my mother. I figured out that’s why I thought the frames made me look old. It’s because they make me look like my mother in her last glasses, which also were wire-rimmed.

The wire frames expose my eyes more than my former horn-rimmed frames did. That can be good, or not so good when I’m frowning. Will I have to start using eye make-up again? I haven’t bothered in many years. But maybe I should.

So, do the frames make me look older or younger? Plainer or prettier?

I suppose I shouldn’t be vain. Because I can see out of them. And that’s what counts. I must adjust my self-image to reflect who I am inside, not who the glasses make me look like. After all, every line on my face has been earned with age.

What accessories do you have that change your self-image when you wear them?