Eyeglasses Next

Five years ago, on a March school break trip to Halifax with Oliver, I went eyeglasses shopping, ending up at Gaudet Optical where I ordered the blue round eyeglasses I’ve been wearing for the past five years.

Those glasses have served me well: that they were a bold departure from the blend-into-the-background eyeglasses that I’d worn theretofore gave me a kick of self-confidence during a time when I sorely needed all that I could muster (and left me in the novel situation of receiving compliments from random strangers, which also didn’t hurt). Wearing them also threw down a sort of creative gauntlet: if I could unabashedly get away with wearing those glasses, what else could I do!?

This spring, though, it was time for a change: optician Greg Matheson, here in Charlottetown, had been generously keeping the blue eyeglasses in good repair, but, with a new prescription in hand, and realizing that I was one careless accident away from being left unable to function, I dropped into Matheson Eyewear a few weeks ago to see what they might have that would suit.

I had been strongly considering fading back into the background and finding an unremarkable pair of black or brown glasses when Greg brought out a pair of jaunty bright bright bright orange ones, arrived just that morning from Vanni in Torino, Italy. He was smiling. “I thought of you when these came in,” he said.

A bridge too far, I thought immediately.

But then I tried them on.

And they grew on me.

But, no.

I tried on some other frames.

Black. Blue. Green. Normal.

But my gaze kept turning back to the outlandishly orange.

Eventually I held my breath and blurted out “I’ll take them!”

Measurements were taken, payment made, timelines established. On the way home I was hit with waves of “have I completely lost my mind?!”

Two weeks passed.

The finished pair of eyeglasses was ready today, and I stopped in to pick them up.

I love them.

Welcome to eyeglasses next.