I am HOT...HOT...HOT

My grandmother's 90th birthday is in June and my mom, brother and I thought it would be a great idea to create a picture album for her filled with family memories throughout the years. I was visiting my mom over Memorial Day weekend and we spent a few hours digging through old pictures to include in the album. In our picture hunt I came across an old school picture...which as you can clearly see is the early mark of my hotness.

I strongly believe the biggest fear for a child is the day they learn they need glasses or braces. These things are like the scarlet letter of elementary school. Kids who are cursed with four eyes or a metal mouth, no matter how easily they fit in before, find themselves cast out of the "in crowd" and quickly make their way to the end of the line at the polar opposite of "coolness". As a kid I was blessed with naturally straight teeth but horribly messed up eyesight. No matter how many carrots I chowed down on I saw the fuzzy lines of the blackboard grow even fuzzier until that fateful day when my teacher sent me home with a note addressed to my mom...which under strained squinted eyesight I knew read, "Stacy needs glasses".

The way my mom tells the story...I was the one who picked out my glasses and insisted on the huge pink frames. The way I tell it...my mom did not do her proper motherly duty in damage control. To add to insult my eyesight was so bad that my glasses were bi-focals and so thick that if I looked into the afternoon sun I would surely burn off all my eyelashes.

I wore glasses for about 4 years until the wonderful day when my wishes were answered and my mom allowed me to graduate from nerdy four eyes to a full fledged contact lens wearer. I couldn't ditch the glasses soon enough. The scars were almost healed although not forgotten. In those 4 years I endured countless name calling...suffered the brunt of many punchlines and was even asked out by the most popular boy in school as a result of a painful dare by his friends.

Being cursed with huge pink glasses...which over the years varied from huge pink glasses to huge navy blue glasses and varying shades between...actually brought me quite a few blessings. I wasn't ever one of the pretty girls that the boys wanted to go out with. I could never rely on my looks to get me by on anything. I couldn't bat my eyelashes to get my way...even though they were quite noticeable as they were magnified to ten times their normal size. I couldn't depend on the idea that guys would always be falling at my feet...that was my good friend Tania who held that curse. But I did spend those 4 years (between the tears of course) relying on my sense of humor and my ability to make people smile. I couldn't cherish my good looks so I cherished my good character and sensitivity. Looking the way I did forced me to dig deeper than what I looked like to others and focus on how I was to others. I didn't have the magnetism of looks to draw people in so I had to draw them in through other means. I got my friends through a far deeper connection.

No matter how many years pass between my "glasses years" and today I always feel like if I remember who I was back then...the little girl with huge glasses...I am able to see the world more clearly...and that is a blessing in itself.