Fit

Day 71: A few months ago, I broke my glasses. The lenses themselves were just fine, but the hinge on the right arm came apart. My insurance only covers new glasses every two years and I was still 4 months short when I sat on my glasses. Thus, I was forced to make do by taping the broken arm in place and waiting. My glass constantly slid down my nose, off my nose, into my lap, onto the ground. Sometimes the tape would fail and the glasses would fall apart. Once, that happened while I was driving. On top of that, the arm was taped on in a way that provided stability, but rendered the arm unfoldable and the glasses almost entirely unadjustable. The glasses did not fit well, and would not fit well. But I got used to them.

A couple weekends ago, I lost my broken glasses at a wedding. I am able to see short distances without them, but, without them, driving becomes dangerous during the day and entirely impossible at night.Thus what was once just an annoying situation became an altogether impossible one.

I went to the eye doctor for an exam and walked out with semi-expensive replacements. I liked them. I liked them so much, in fact, that I didn't particularly care when a woman said to me, "Drew... they make you look so... nerdy. Like... more nerdy than usual." An insecure Drew would have openly questioned her ill fitting cardigan and discount hair dye. That day, however, I only smiled and said, "Well, I like them." And I did. I do, even. But then weird things started to happen.

The glasses sit just where they're ought to without pokes from pointer finger or encouragement by way of nose crinkling. They behave as they should. Yet that doesn't stop me (even as I write this) from occasionally reaching up and pushing them here and there, adjusting them, taking them off and looking at them, rubbing my temples and shrugging my nose. They fit perfectly and, because of that, they give me headaches. I can hardly keep them on for more than an hour or so before taking them off. I can see much better with these than I could with my broken (and now missing) glasses, but, still, they're a pain - literally. The points at which they press upon my head are particularly uncomfortable.

I find myself missing the broken, ill-fitting, dangerous glasses, even though I see better with my new glasses, even though these new glasses are aesthetically superior. The old dodgy glasses, however, are familiar. I'd learned my way around the brokenness and had even come to expect and welcome it. When it went missing, I lost the standard that I had adapted to, a comfort I had worked very hard for. The new glasses are superior in every way, but they're not mine. Sure, I own them and use them, but they aren't yet personal. They're not a part of me yet.

That pretty much sums up the entire semester so far. I spent much of the time expecting things to fall apart and get tougher and more impossible, just as they had before. This time, though, things are much easier. Not only am I much more focused, but I'm less burdened and distracted by outside concerns than I was before. On top of that, I'm keeping at it, pressing through the tricky spots, saying no to beer and yes to homework (each when I have to [and ONLY when I have to]) and find myself now on the cusp of having had a successful semester.

And that's horrifying.

I know what it's like to fail. I know what it's like to grunt and strain and try with all your might to lift only to walk away with a gut full of hernia and a heart full of shame. All of that is as familiar to me as the sound of my own voice. I didn't glory in it or celebrate it at the time, and, had you asked me back then, I would have told you how much I hated it.

But this new way is unknown, unfamiliar, and sometimes that feels worse. I'm not familiar with this trajectory and, other than hearsay, I'm flying blind. I don't want my old glasses, and I don't want to go back to the way I did things, but I miss them both. I miss knowing.

I have two and a half weeks left of classes and finals and am already in the thick of planning and registering for coursework for next Summer, Fall, and Spring. I'm exhausted and on the verge of burning out, but I've still got some gas in the tank. I'm good for at least one more round.

This new path is lousy with unfamiliarity but I've eyeballed my grades and they're looking pretty good. I see them and say to myself, "In no time at all, you'll be used to these new glasses. The headaches will be gone, you'll forget you even have them on half the time, and you'll forget all about those old ones that weren't anything but trouble. In two weeks or so, you're going to see just how worth it is was to stretch those underused muscles and try lifting again."

I'm worried about the money, and the time, and the everything else, but can't ignore how good it feels to be trying - trying and succeeding, even.

Almost.

And only "almost". We've still got two weeks to go. But, if the last 13 weeks have been any indicator, in two more weeks, we'll be adding a "W" to the books. And I'd say that'd be worth the price of new glasses.

My New Specs

_____


Full disclosure: Wearing my new glasses, I called the reception hall where I'd last seen them, hoping that someone had found them. They had not.

#destiny
#outwiththeold
#noturningback

That Day

Day 51: It begins well enough in New England.

In September, young college men arrive on a campus positively lousy women - supple, buxom, flirty, eager, curious women, many of whom are, for the first time, without their parents supervision. Their shorts are shorter than expected, their hair softer, their eyes beckoning, their staunch inhibitions faded to vestigial mores by an insistent summer sun.

These college men, each of them, are paralyzed by the veritable galaxy of dazzling women, taunted and moved, indecipherably inspired as so much secret flesh dances from quad to quad, winking, like a promise, like a dare. The young men would act if not for the sheer improbability of the spectacle. Is it a trap? Are they the predators or the prey? Where do they begin? HOW do they begin?

But all this hesitation is mere pretense, masking a most profound an unadulterated feeling of gratitude. They  don't deserve this, but... they will take it. And, as the hesitation gives way to adventure, pursuit, hunger, and fantasy, they break from their fragile prisons of insecurity and begin the game that's been in play since time immemorial.

And then, winter comes.

To be sure, there is a necessary pass through Fall, but, here in New England, fall lasts no more than a week or two - ample warning for the natives, and an object lesson for newcomers. It is warm enough to go without a jacket until it isn't anymore. And, by then, you best be prepared to shovel.

And at that, all the young things that danced about, heedless of convention and daddy's unwavering moral standards, cocoon themselves in voluminous jackets and long pants, neutered by necessity. "Male" and "female" become play words, incidental abstractions, rumors. The once fertile land of opportunity and promise is, almost at once, rendered fallow and inert with ambiguity.

For many months afterward, the game lingers in hiatus. The men and boys, no less inspired than on the first day, are forced to funnel their energies elsewhere; football, basketball, Call of Duty. The vixens hide in plain sight - the men see but do not see, smell but do not pursue. Thereby this hesitation, coming from without, is worst than the first. They know what they want, yet cannot know. It is barren. It is confusion.

And then, winter goes.

To be sure, Spring happens, but, here in New England, it is a cursory greeting lasting just long enough for the birds to return. But, in that time, there is a day - the first upon which the long dormant sun first announces herself, compelling the and the old snow to flee and Earth to give up her green things.

Also on that day, - here commonly known by all men as That Day - they emerge.

The long legs and slender fingers are loosed from pants and gloves. The hair falls from beneath the wool caps , tender earlobes uncovered from earmuffs. The androgynous play of heavy coats and collars fades away, in an instant, as if it were never there, as if it might never return. And the shorts - the wonderful, heavenly, gift of shorts - they return.

A thousands limbs and lips and eye try out the sunlight, as if for the first time, and every male so inclined and inspired by the promise made by Fall, watches as the promise is fulfilled before their very eyes, a parade of eager songbirds drenched in the first tethers of honest sunlight strolling across the quad, unaware yet aware, winking with their hips, beginning the game anew.