My Glasses Endeavour & Idea of Beauty

When I was 10 years old, my little brother and cousin, both in the year below me at school, started wearing glasses. I would go to school with them and stared enviously at their sunglasses, wishing I had a pair on me, too. A year later I got my wish, and I was probably the one kid that was happy having a pair of glasses (or specs, as we called them) perched on my nose.

Then one day, in my mid twenties, I looked in the mirror and wished my 10-year-old self's wish never came true.

You see, I have this love-hate relationship with them. My livelihood depends on them, but I had never fully grown fond of them. I wear glasses on a daily basis and switched to contact lens only when I had an event to go to, when I'm out to see friends and family, or when I'm out on a fancy date with Shah. I might not like glasses much, but I dislike sticking things onto my eyeballs even more; I would come back home from a day out with my contact lens on with my eyeballs feeling dry as dust and practically kiss my glasses gratefully when I take them out of their case. Like I said, love-hate.

Why don't I like wearing glasses? A few reasonable reasons:

• They're one extra thing you have to really take care of. Like a pet. Or even a baby. Like, you can't leave your baby lying around on the sofa because a sofa is a place where sit down on, and same goes for your glasses.
• You can't put on makeup as precise as you'd like. For example, if you apply eyeshadow and think it's already blended out, it's only because you have blurry vision and your eyes send a message to your brain that your eye makeup is already on point. In reality, your eyeshadow actually is still very much unblended.
• Even when your eye makeup is on fleek, you can't show it off because it's hidden behind your high-index lenses.
• They leave marks on the bridge of your nose.

And plenty more reasons where that came from, but I want to touch on one point that I think is most important: I don't think I look good in them.

I mean, I think I look OK in glasses. I look just fine in them. But I've never put on my glasses and thought to myself, "Hey, I look pretty good right now", or "This might be the best I've ever looked", unlike when I just finished applying mascara or swiping lipstick with my contact lens on (hence, without my glasses on).

But once in a while, I would ask, "Is it possible I'm just being too harsh on myself?", and "Where did I get this idea that me wearing glasses is not as attractive as me not wearing them?".

I have no idea. I think so many people look good in glasses but even then I don't see these people enough in them. Is it possible that they have the same idea as I do, that they look less cute in glasses? Is it because we probably don't get enough people to showcase how hotstuff you can look with a pair of glasses on? How many celebrities do you see walking with the red carpet with glasses on? How many bloggers are there who do outfit posts without having their contact lens on?

Is it possible that glasses are like red lipstick, where we need the beauty and fashion experts telling us in the media and social media that glasses are "in" for glasses to be truly be "in"?

Whatever it is, lately I've been telling myself these: wearing glasses is a major part of myself. It's what I do on a daily basis. It's how I live.
And it's a bit of myself that I need to embrace and need to like and need to love. Because there's beauty in all sizes and colours and differences.

But mostly because I really don't like wearing contact lens.

So for the past year or so, for my own sake and (extra) self-confidence, I've been on the lookout for glasses-wearers and drawing inspirations from them. Bobbi Brown. Jenna Lyons. Tina Fey. Lupita Nyong'o. Random girls on the street. One girl I saw in Dip 'n Dip Bangsar (who had a cool black-and-white chevron scarf hijab on). 

Because of all these beauties, I'm starting to really like that glasses-wearing bit of myself.

I hope that whoever you are, wherever you are, you're learning to love all the bits and pieces that make up you, too!