Through glasses darkly

I picked up my glasses today; the first glasses (other than reading glasses and sunglasses) I have owned in 38 (ouch) years. Among the instructions from Marseille was the admonition that contact-lens wearers should expect to wear glasses for the first week or so after the operation. Because I didn't own a pair of glasses I had to find a local optician who would make me a pair quickly. I figured I’d better get used to them BEFORE the surgery, because I didn't know how long it would be before my eyes could wear them afterward.

Oh the first time I put on the glasses, they felt so STRONG. Blinding, almost. Could the fact that I haven’t owned a pair of prescription glasses since the age of 16 have something to do with vanity? I had stubbornly refused to buy them all these years because it seemed like a betrayal of my faith in contacts, but now I wonder if egotism also had something to do with it.