Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder, and I Am Not Seeing It

I have worn corrective lenses since I was seven.  While growing up, my wise and frugal parents allowed me to pick my frames from a limited selection.  I mostly ended up with the marbled plastic frames and really thick, heavy lenses.  Add that to the fact that I have no bridge to hold them up (I'm Asian, remember!), my glasses would quite often slide down my nose.  I was HOT!

My glasses never caused much conflict here in the US.  Sometimes, the school photographer would ask me to push my glasses up to my eyes, but that was about as controversial as it got.

Whenever I visited family in Asia, however, my glasses were the source of much controversy.  Relatives would take my glasses from my face and say, "There, that looks better."  Sometimes, they would hold on to them and tell me to go about my day without them, as if I didn't NEED them!  When we would take pictures, they sometimes asked me to take them off.  I should have been offended, but instead I was grateful that they took pride in my natural beauty.

So, if my Asian relatives ever show you a family photo, I am the Asian girl looking cross-eyed at the camera.  There, that looks better.