If you know me in real life, you know that I am rarely without my old, familiar sunglasses atop my head.
But if you read my post about my struggles this summer with my contact lenses, you also know that I’ve been trying to embrace my new identity as a glasses girl.
The bad part? You can’t really be a glasses girl AND a sunglasses girl.
Transitioning to glasses hasn’t been too hard for the most part, because I love my new Pair eyewear glasses and fancy toppers. There are things that I definitely miss about wearing contacts, though.
I hate constantly cleaning my glasses so I’m not staring through a dirty windshield. And I miss the freedom of being able to see perfectly without glasses. Contacts felt like an invisible ability or superpower that I didn’t appreciate until they were gone.
And then there’s my old, worn, beat-up sunglasses that I always wore on my head. I miss them so!
You see, I’ve been wearing the same style of Maui Jim’s every day, at work and play, since the early 2000s. They’ve basically become an extension of me – like a cherished fifth limb.
I’m on my third pair of these same shades; one got run over by a car and one got dropped in a deep lake. Both times, I never even considered getting a new or different style of sunglasses. I just love my familiar Maui Jim’s and wearing them on my head feels like second nature. It feels so wrong not to have them on!
Not only did they perch there conveniently atop my head – waiting patiently until I walked out into bright sunlight and placed them on my face – but those sunglasses also held my hair back just the way I like. No headband or hairclip could ever compare to my faded old MJ stunna shades.
A few weeks into wearing my new glasses – with their demure, cutesy magnetic toppers to pop on anytime I needed sun protection – I saw an old picture of myself and felt a strong, almost emotional craving for my old, familiar sunglasses atop my head.
Then I realized, wait a minute. Why am I denying myself this simple pleasure in life? Why am I NOT wearing my beloved MJs atop my dome? Is it because I think it will look goofy to wear glasses and sport stunnaz at the same time? Well, who cares – I AM goofy! It would be totally on-brand of me to wear them both.
And just like that, all my cares flew out the window as I put my darling old Maui Jim’s back on top of my head where they belong. It felt like coming home! I can’t remember ever feeling this happy without them. I don’t know why I ever tried to raw dog my way through life without these sunglasses atop my head.
They are my emotional support sunglasses, they make me happy and that’s that. I truly don’t care how they look!
The moral of the story: once you are a woman of a certain age, you no longer give a flying eff about looking silly or what other people might think. You simply do you – and that is a beautiful thing to do!
Now if you see me out in public with glasses on my face and sunglasses on my head, you’ll know why.
