the gold-rimmed universe

i have been wearing spectacles for the past 13 years, since i was 7. out of the 10 or 11 pairs i have possessed 8 were gold-rimmed glasses. put another way - out of the 13 years of myopic vision only 1.5 years were spent without gold rimmed glasses. it does seem to be my first and fundamental criterion as to choosing a new pair of glasses (which up until relatively recently was an annual affair). my first pair of spectacles was a large and clunky greyish plastic monstrosity which sat uneasily on my young (and very small) face; and the other non-gold rimmed pair was a slightly less clunky bmt-mandated black pleastic rimmed spectacles. which i hated. the first i wore for slightly more than a year and the second i wore for about 5 weeks.

anyway the point of this long and tiresome exposition is that i suddenly realised today that i've worn gold rimmed glasses for so long that my entire view of the world has this metallic frame hovering on the edges of my field of vision, beyond which everything just seems blurry. before today i didn't really have an inkling thtat this might actually be unnatural.

i've been wearing gold-rimmed glasses for so long that they've become part of my identity. i am not me without my spectacles. and with each successive reincarnation they've just become more and more like me. maybe they are me now and i am not myself. never mind that these frames are mass produced and quite possibly hundreds or even thousands of other people around the world wear them; every single pair of glasses i have owned are part of me.

so close is this identification that i have never, nor ever will, consider switching to contact lenses. the very idea of it fills me with a mysterious, unspeakable, intangible horror. (a bit like reading HP Lovecraft at midnight.) perhaps it is the force of the traditional taboo against suicide, self-murder, or slaughter. or maybe the fear that, like a horcrux being destroyed, it will weaken my soul at some fundamental level.

i have, however, (and now i admit ashamedly, as one would to thinking of committing a terrible crime), just a year ago, considered purchasing a black metal-rimmed pair of spectacles instead of the usual gold rimmed ones when the time came to replace my old pair. i shudder to think of what might have happened if i did. (the story, by the way, has a happy ending. i stuck to the good old gold-rimmed glasses, but with rectangular instead of round frames. the ones that you see on the bridge of my nose nowadays.)

so here's a tribute to my gold rimmed spectacles which have served me, in various reincarnations, for nearly 12 years. after all this time they still scream "GEEK ALERT!!!" at the world. some styles never go out of fashion :)