I wear red glasses to prove that I am not afraid of color. It is all part of the rehabilitation program started by my best and worst roommate (so called because while she was the best friend I roomed with, we very nearly killed each other while sharing the same space for a year). She informed me during one of our recent retail outings that my taste in clothing was very dull because I was afraid of color. Granted, my wardrobe heavily favored black and other dark tones during the time that we lived together in college because I was your typical angst-ridden teen, but I had come to develop a philosophy in the subsequent years that more reasonably justified my heavily monochromatic collection of clothing. I figured that if everything was close to the same color, then everything would match, thereby creating a maximum number of possible variations with a minimum of actual articles of clothing.
Clearly, she disagreed. I bought a bright red sweater to placate her at the time. I wear it with any of my five pairs of black dress pants, coupled with one of my four pairs of black dress shoes. I vary jewelry based on mood and occasion.
I arrived at the optometrist’s office that fateful day wearing a pair of almost-rimless glasses that matched my hair. My previous two pairs before that were rimless with silver temples, and heavy black plastic (you know the type – everyone was doing it at the time). I foolishly wandered about the office before the optician arrived, looking for more invisible frames. Then the woman swooped into the room, and with a courteous smile and a flurry of activity had me seated at her desk while she rifled through her entire collection, flinging frames onto the surface in front of me and informing me that I should like this or that, never once pausing to ask what I had in mind. The first frame to land in front of me was red. I mean, red. Sure, the temples were black, but the metal holding the lenses in place looked like it came straight from a Crayola box. I was having vivid flashbacks to that red-orange crayon I had scribbled down to a nub in kindergarten. I tried to push them away but she insisted I give them a little thought as she continued to toss more frames in my lap. Shiny purple! Teal! Well, if you really want to, here are a few black and brown frames like your old ones.
All the while, I kept hearing a little voice telling me to go back to the red ones, and now that I think about it, that voice sounded an awful lot like hers.
…and the optician was really persuasive.
Either way, I left the encounter with a shiny new pair of red glasses, and it was the best decision I’ve ever made based peer pressure. The cheeky red glasses make me feel smarter, sexier, and all-around superior. Just like my dear old roomie so desperately wants me to be.
More importantly though, the daily splash of color reminds me not to be so timid with my projects. Yes, those green beads would go with more if I paired them with simple silver or wood, but look at that vein of purple running through them! Go big or go home! Add some more color! Since procuring my red glasses, I have learned to match clothing to accessories, rather than the other way around. It forces me to exercise creativity daily and I’m much happier for it.
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