The Life of a Nearly-Blind

As many of you know, I'm nearly legally blind. My current prescription is around -7, and -8 means you're legally blind, or so I've been told. So here is a quick and fun list of the woes of a nearly-blind person.

1) (For girls) It's almost impossible to shave your legs in the shower. I don't wear my glasses in the shower, as they would just fog up and be useless anyway. So I'm pretty much shaving blind... It's not so bad for my legs, as I can feel if I missed a spot, but my knees are harder, I don't know why. I have to lean in very close, and I still will almost always miss a spot. Oddly enough, I very rarely actually knick myself. I'm just very skilled.

2) While on an upside down ride at an amusement park, the only thing that scares me is having my glasses fall off. I have no fear that I will fall, just my glasses. Therefore, I have to either hold onto them, or put them in my purse.

3) Playing sports suddenly becomes much more dangerous. Maybe not for myself, but for my glasses. I've been hit in the face several times by a soccer ball, and so far I have not broken my glasses, so I was lucky. I've been hit by dodge balls and volley balls, and so far no breakage. When I did fencing I had to switch to smaller glasses to actually fit under the mask, but it still hurt when it dug into my face...

4) On sunny days, the nose part on my glasses gets very hot and sweaty. It's gross. It might just be the type of glasses I wear. They're plastic with the nose piece resting directly on the nose, rather than the type with the little rubber feet.

5) I don't worry too much about this, but a lot of other people do. If you lose your glasses, you're pretty much screwed. I always carry around a spare pair, but they have an old prescription, so they won't work too well. But I never take my glasses off unless I'm taking a shower or going to bed.


Of course, I could get around all this by wearing contacts or getting laser eye surgery, but I hate contacts; they give me headaches and I'm more likely to damage my eye with my nails... And laser eye surgery is very expensive. Maybe when I'm older, but for now I'm happy enough with glasses. In fact, I look strange without them.