Have any of you felt like taking an important decision but kept postponing it? Something you’ve been wanting to make happen but for fear, timing, budget, whatever reason, you just haven’t been able to go through with it? Well, I’m going to share two important things I did last year, exactly at the beginning of the year, to help you get over whatever is holding you back. If you want to conquer that fear you have to get up, face it, and move forward.
For years I have suffered from mild myopia (nearsightedness), and while is not too serious or bad (my prescription is below 2.0 for both eyes), I don’t see sharp edges and things appear a bit out of focus from the distance. I’ve had eyeglasses for at least a decade and while I only wore them for driving and watching movies at the cinema, it got to the point where it started to get uncomfortable when being out in the sun (basically I had to choose, do I wear sunglasses or do I get bothered by the sun and actually see in focus, you know?), running, and even when watching TV. I was the person who would go to the cinema and if for some reason realized that I left my eyeglasses at home, I would just skip the movie.
For those of you who wear glasses you’re probably familiar with what I’m saying and while is not serious and I’m not blind, the fact that I couldn’t recognize faces from afar was bothering me. So, I came to the conclusion that my options were: 1. Get prescription on all my sunglasses. Can you imagine? if you own more than one pair how pricey that could get? and how about cheap frames? it wouldn’t make sense at all to have their lenses changed, right? And what about my running glasses? I would have to update those too. Seemed like too much to be honest. 2. Get contact lenses. Hmmmm, contact lenses….anyone shares the fear of touching your own eye? I grew up watching my mom put her contact lenses on (the hard ones) and loose them all the time. Oh and she would say how they would move to the back of her eye or something like that…yeah, no thank you. As much as I feared getting contacts, it seemed like the rational thing to do. So, I put my fear aside and decided to face whatever it was going to take to wear these things and SEE (Gosh I sound so dramatic haha). Just the thought that I could go running and see edges, see where things start and end, recognize faces, admire details…motivated me to book my appointment and as of last January I’ve been wearing contact lenses and I LOOOOOVE it. I do have to say, it took some adjustment, and I wasn’t able to easily and effortlessly put them on and take them off for about a month, but with practice and patience, I nailed it 🙂
If you’ve been considering getting contacts, I highly recommend them. While I do wear my eyeglasses on occasions I absolutely love wearing my contacts. It’s incredible what I’ve been missing haha. I’ll share some things I learned from the process on another post so that this doesn’t get too long, I still have to tell you about the second thing I did last year!
The other thing I did last year was getting braces. Yep, braces, at this age, and I couldn’t be happier about it. Just don’t ask me how much I miss Tim Tams, fresh celery sticks with hummus, sweet potato chips, and biting something crunchy like an apple or any food for that matter (just the thought of the mess is enough to make me not to). I won’t lie, it is a bit of a hassle, it has broken my mouth on the inside on more than one occasion (vaseline and wax to the rescue!), it has been painful at times (advil and I have become closer friends in the past year), but it is all worth it, absolutely worth it. I still have a couple of months to go so my focus is on the end result and not on the process, which, in the grand scheme of things it really isn’t that bad. I mean, I can think of a hundred things that are waaaay worse and actually serious, so if for some reason you are considering it, you’re only going to get encouragement from me (and tips, I have lots of tips!). If you are on the fence because you feel like you are too old for it I’ll tell you this: you’re never too old and it’s never too late to do something you want to do, especially something as basic as having straight teeth, proper bite and proper jaw positioning. Think of it as an investment in your self-esteem and health. Don’t sweat the decision making so much and just go for it. And if for some reason you can’t relate to none of these changes I’ve made for myself, I hope you can use this as an example to inspire you to go after something you’ve been wanting to do but haven’t done so because you’ve been fearing the decision making. Is there something you’ve been wishing to do but haven’t found the courage to actually go after it? Perhaps you feel like the timing is not right? There’s no such thing as perfect timing, the time is NOW. Put your fears and doubts aside and choose you. Don’t live your life thinking what would have been “if….”, something that in my opinion, is one of the worst feelings you can carry. If any of you is interested in tips for wearing contact lenses and getting braces I’ll share them on another post, for now I’ll leave you with this quote from J.K. Rowling, words I find quite fitting for this post: “anything is possible if you’ve got enough nerve”.
