Breaking Something Bad

A few weeks into my freshman year at college, about a month after I bought new glasses, my dorm's social committee decided to throw a dorm-wide game of capture the flag. In my effort to be social and make new friends, I decided to join in.

About 100 of us descended upon the Arts Quad around dusk and split into our two teams: the west side of the dorm versus the east side. We each claimed our half of the quad and got into our starting positions. I didn't feel too awkward about participating in this game. One thing I had going for me was that I had always been a decent runner. So whenever some flag-greedy nemesis from the west side tried to break into our territory, I was all over it: running after them and tagging them straight into the jail.

The sun set, and throughout the game dusk transformed into a cloudy darkness punctured by only a few stars. As the visibility dropped, it became harder to distinguish our teammates from opponents. In the obscurity I picked up on an unguarded opponent snagging our flag and making a run for it. Alarmed, I set out for him from the north, another girl came from the east, another guy from the west and several other of our teammates descended upon our stolen flag from even less well defined directions.

He was surrounded, but he was also close to his home base. Some of my teammates were closer to him, but it looked like he was increasing his lead on them. Worried, I kicked into turbo gear, as did some of my other teammates. He was only a few feet from the end of our territory, only a few feet from winning the game. He kept on running, but I was getting closer. I reached my hands out in front of me as far as I could. Reach, reach, reach, I was only inches away, it was going to be all right. He was getting tired from all of his maneuvering, and so was I but this was my chance. I made a few bigger and faster leaps and finally I could feel my fingertips brushing up against his shirt. One more step and then...

BOOM!

There was a huge impact to the side of my head and then on my torso from the other direction. The next snapsecond I was skidding across the dew-moistened grass for a few feet. Ouch. I wasn't sure what had happened but our opponent was on the ground too, and he was definitely out of the game and our flag was once again safe. Yes, I did it. We did it. Whatever happened.

One of the girls came up to me, "I'm so sorry I ran into you."

"Don't worry about it," I reassured her, and reached for the side of my head where she made impact in order to reassure myself that everything was really OK. "At least we got him. Good job!"

The girl smiled and walked away, but as I felt the side of my head for bumps my hand brushed up against the handle of my glasses that rests the main frame behind my ears. It was completely indented with the shape of the girl's forehead, and as a result the glasses sat on my face at a severe angle.

Panicked that I broke my brand new glasses I stepped to one of the far corners of the quad so no one would see me. I took of my glasses and tried to mold them back into shape. I smoothed out the handle, and it responded but still retained some of its kinks. I rested the frame back on my nose and bent the lenses until they were even on my face. I managed but it was only a cosmetic fix.

For the next few days I found myself constantly having to mold my glasses back into shape. They seemed hell bent on curving and twisting after that impact. I liked the frame, but for the next few weeks I couldn't wait till I got a new one. This one was only a month old but already damaged.

Two years passed by and I was still wearing those glasses. They got tired of fighting me, or perhaps the tiny fixes I had to make just became a hassle-free routine to me. After months upon months of smoothing out the kinks the damage didn't visibly bother me, but it was still ever so slightly there.

Perhaps if I had the money and the spunk I would have done something more serious about the situation two years ago. Maybe I would have tried to switch them or get new ones. Two years ago I told myself I couldn't wait for new ones but because of my inertia, nervousness and then being sucked into the life of school work and college jobs I never found the time.

After two years of wearing those glasses and getting very attached to them I FLIPPED OUT when I woke up after a short nap to find them crushed under me. The thought, the destruction, the loss plunged me into an angry, self-loathing depression. After two years, I was not willing to give up those glasses. I had settled with them into a comfortably unsatisfactory relationship that I had really wanted to end as early as one month into the deal.

Now that I'm home for fall break, I found the time to get new glasses. It was an annoyingly difficult decision to make. I just didn't have that mindset to go looking for something new, and there wasn't much that I even liked. Eventually I found something very similar to my original glasses but a little smaller and perhaps even a littler chic-er. A day or two later, and I'm quite content with them.

I can't help but wonder if, despite all the anger and stress, it was a good thing that I slept on my old glasses and unconsciously crushed them. I made a decision at the beginning of this year to start turning my life around, getting rid of the old things that wore me down but keeping the lessons and moving on to the newer and better. So I can't help but think that this whole ordeal with the glasses is really just what I needed to help me move along, move along...