When I was small and wore glasses all the time I used to wish I was pretty and didn't need them, people would like to look at me. It didn't matter that I was hardly in first grade or if I was really so ugly in my huge glasses, I just knew there had to be something more beautiful underneath. Because once or twice, when I was alone and my brother and sister weren't around, I'd squintily studied my face in the bathroom mirror for an inordinately long time, perhaps a little self indulgently, almost crying that people couldn't see the real me behind my glasses. That underneath I was alright. For some reason I kept thinking there was something wrong with me for wearing these shields over my eyes.