Four Eyes – Childhood Trauma

I’ve needed glasses since the 3rd grade.  I didn’t wear contacts until 10th grade.  For those 7 years, I was too embarrassed to wear my glasses in school.  This became quite problematic when you can’t see the board.  I someone how managed without wearing my glasses consistently until 8th grade, Mr, Sieger, algebra.

Mr. Sieger was a no BS math teacher.  After every quiz or test he’d post your score outside his classroom by your Student ID and it was nerve racking starting from the top and scanning towards the bottom which is where I usually was.  The reason I hated this class so much was that he used the projector to post every quiz.  Naturally the seating chart had me sitting in the back and this didn’t bode well for seeing his chicken scratch math equations.

I always carried my glasses around in my book bag but I would never use them.  One day Mr. Sieger had his standard quiz on the projector and I couldn’t make out any of the writing.  I had to suck it up and wear my glasses.  After putting them on and clearly seeing the projector, Chung Lee, who was in the row beside me looked at me and started laughing hysterically.  It’s one of those moments where you know why you don’t where glasses.  This was probably for the best because after that day I didn’t have a problem wearing the glasses.

This tale makes me laugh because I was so scared of fitting in that I essentially walked around life with no clarity.  As I look back, how did I play sports well?  I couldn’t see the ball.  I used to be mortified to bat in travel baseball when the game started getting too dark to see the ball.  It’s funny because I didn’t tell the coach or anything, I just would get up to the plate and hope to hit the fuzzy ball with my bat.  This is probably why I batted .250.

Finally in 10th grade I got contacts and life was wonderfully better.  Why I didn’t wear my glasses is certainly questionable because it wasn’t like I was a cool kid or anything.  I was already a nerd playing video games and Magic the gathering, I’m not sure what I was trying to preserve.  Life sure was different as a kid.