Thirteen

Almost thirteen and leaving behind the awkward “tween” years. Gone would be the teasing cry, “Four Eyes!” No more bulky glasses with the thick lenses or worries about being “blind” without them or getting them knocked off my face in P.E. No more red marks on my nose or fogged up glasses coming in from the cold. I’ve worn glasses for so long I can’t remember what my face looks like without them. Every picture in the house shows me bespectacled.

The day has arrived. Contact lenses! The doctor arrives wearing his usual white coat, brown polyester pants that match his thick, wavy hair, and bulky striped tie. He hitches his pants up and sits on his stool next to me. The wheels squeak as he inches closer, the soles of his shoes skidding on the floor. His breath is stale – did he forget to brush? It’s hot on my face as he checks my eyes and inserts the contacts. How do they feel? Weird. Itchy. Blinking. They don’t hurt. Where’s the mirror?

I want to see….

Oh, no, I gasp. Is that me? It can’t be. Who is this person? This is not the face I remember when I was 7 B.G. (before glasses). I start to cry. My eyes look small and squinty, now red from crying. My nose looks so big, my face blotchy, and my chin, with that stupid dimple in the middle that I hate, looks magnified.

I feel so ugly.

The tears keep coming, faster now like a tidal wave. “What’s wrong?” my mother asks. “I’m ugly,” I gulp in reply. Who is this person? My crying irritates my mother. “You’re embarrassing me,” she hisses. “Who’d you expect to see?” she asks. “Someone pretty,” I sob. “But you are pretty,” she says. “You have to say that because you’re my mother,” I moan. It’s hopeless. She’ll never understand.

I stand in front of the mirror until I can take it no longer. The tears have ebbed, but the feelings of despair and disappointment remain. What do I do now? How am I supposed to go to school on Monday? What names will they call me now?

A lifetime of self-doubt born on that day.

Who am I?