In mid-January, my glasses broke. I pinched the frame of one lens between my left thumb and forefinger, as usual, while I firmly scrubbed at the other lens with a microfiber cloth using my right thumb, forefinger, and second finger. After just one or two swirls of the cloth, the bridge snapped, banishing a tiny scrap of plastic to the ether and leaving one lens clenched in each hand. I gasped, stunned, and stared at the gap where the bridge of my glasses had been a whole piece just seconds ago. My partner, alerted by the sound, intoned, “What?” with concerned curiosity.

Rather than speak, I held up both sides of my glasses. There was a pause as they registered what had happened, and then they gasped and sat up, reaching for the pieces as I started to spiral. These glasses were my only pair. The prescription is 18 months old. I’ve never broken a pair of glasses before. And because I wear progressives (no-line bifocals), each time I get a new pair of glasses, it’s incredibly expensive even with insurance.

The panic stemmed from these sources, as well as the feeling that I’d “hulked out and broken something,” that once again, I’d damaged something precious. It triggered my fears of taking up too much space as a fat person, of not knowing my own strength, of failing. Of inconveniencing, burdening, and disappointing people I love. Glasses are a necessary aide for my health and wellbeing, and I don’t have any backups.

For the next two days, my partner worked tirelessly with their parents to find a temporary fix that would at least stabilize my glasses for everyday use until we could figure out a plan to get new ones. Eventually, with the help of a family friend, a small piece of steel, super glue, a polymer gel nail kit, and a UV light, I “got my eyes back.” But after two days of operating without my glasses, even though I mostly played a low-intensity video game and slept, I woke up with an intense migraine and spent a couple of days in recovery, getting used to the slightly different feeling of the frames on my face.

I’m so grateful for my support system, who executed a fix I couldn’t have pulled off on my own even if I tried. Even though I know eyeglasses are an ability aide, I didn’t realize how much I relied on them until they broke. This experience not only transformed my thinking about my vision and my glasses, but it also showed me a new definition of perseverance.

As a bonus, it led me to a thrilling discovery: ordering progressive lens glasses online is not only possible, but it’s significantly cheaper than getting glasses through my optometrist. This wasn’t always the case. Even a few years ago, trying to purchase glasses with super-cute frames from an online retailer without insurance was much more expensive than settling for the cutest frames I could find and using insurance to pay for the bulk of my prescription. Increased affordability and accessibility in this arena is a game-changer for me and, I imagine, thousands of others who also wear progressive lenses. (The virtual try-on function is weird and somewhat broken on basically all of the sites I searched, but I’ll take that over paying $300+ out of pocket for glasses any day.)

Last week, I placed an order for a new pair of glasses that are funkier, more colorful, and more interesting than any I’ve worn before. In the last few years, I’ve begun to truly discover “my style,” and I’m excited to see how more flexibility with frames plays into that. Fashion wasn’t of interest to me for decades because, as a fat person, the only available clothing in my size was awful. A lot of plus-size clothing still is. But following people with bodies like mine who play with fashion in new and interesting ways on social media has done wonders for my mental health and my confidence, which has especially blossomed since I shaved my head and started wearing what feels good.

Breaking my glasses felt, in the moment, like a disaster with the potential to upend my fragile mental health and even more fragile physical safety. However, the last month has shown me how seemingly disastrous moments can be downgraded to upsetting or even just inconvenient ones with help, perseverance, and a lot of compassion.

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