I was never one of those kids who had the privilege of wearing transition lenses in middle school. I looked up to those kids as if they were gods, while cursing my perfect Blu-Ray High Definition blessed eyes. However, when my vision inevitably began to crumble at around age 12, I went to Costco with my mom to pick out my very first pair of glasses. After much deliberation and many arguments with my mom, pleading with her to get me four-hundred dollar Fendi frames, I eventually settled on your classic hideous plastic frames that had a proclivity for slipping down my nose.
We went up to the counter where the employee fitted the glasses to me and asked me questions and made final measurements. Finally, he asked me if I wanted transition lenses. I felt a charge of excitement surge through my veins: would I finally be able to exist on the same plane as those unbelievably cool nerds in middle school? My mom jumped in before I could say anything: “No, she doesn’t need those,” my mom told the employee. I could sense my heart dissolving in my chest.
I went on with my boring life without transition lenses for six years, until at age nineteen, I decided to do something extraordinary: go to college with transition lenses. My first day on campus with my new glasses, I began to feel extremely self-conscious due to the stigma around transition lenses, and also due to the fact that very few people seemed to have them. My half-tinted lenses would stay tinted for a few minutes upon entering any building, they would dim in the car, and they would even turn to sunglasses if I sat too close to a window on a sunny day. I was embarrassed, plain and simple.
However, after musing on my idols and biggest influences in life who wear either sunglasses indoors or transition lenses, like my mother, my grandmother, and most importantly Bono from U2, I began to shed my shy, diffident outer shell while becoming resolute in my quest for retina health and pure, unadulterated fashion.
I walk into every indoor space on campus now proud that my glasses will fully take a solid five minutes to revert back to being clear lenses. I am now undaunted when I am in the car and notice my glasses beginning to dim. Transition lenses are straight fire. They combine UV protection with unabridged style to expose the sex symbol in all of us. There should not be this stigma around transition lenses that there is currently: that they are only for when we were lame middle schoolers, or that they are only for old people.
I fully believe that transition lenses are the best thing to ever happen to me. Not only has my confidence skyrocketed, but my eyes are in great shape on account of the many benefits sunglasses provide for eye health. To wrap it up, it is my firm belief that everyone with glasses should invest in transition lenses, not only for the health aspect, but for the Adonis image it will bestow upon you.
