Last week I had an utter eye-mergency. My glasses (yes, I wear glasses– I sit in front of screens or books all day) started to fall apart. When I took them into the optical place on campus, the girl behind the counter said she didn’t want to touch them for fear of breaking them. That was not a good sign.
And so began my frantic journey to get not only a new pair of glasses, but a new prescription; mine have been used for SIX YEARS. I was a baby then. The search inevitably took me to the Yorkdale Mall for an optometrist’s appointment and an hour-long fashionable glasses ‘sesh’ (that’s what they call it in ‘the biz’…a ‘sesh’) at Lenscrafters, a place I’ve always paired up with The Pixies’ song Gouge Away. Clearly I’m over-dramatic.
What ensued was an hour of choosing four inexpensive (re: cheap) glasses to sample/try on/what-have-you with a friend and our later discovery that all four glasses we decided on were the exact same pair. Oddly, one was on clearance. Obviously I bought that pair. They also had a 30% off deal on top of the 50% off clearance price, so there’s that. All in all, a $350 day.
In the meantime I realized something. Yorkdale is akin to the inner mind of a lunatic. Sure, there’s lots of space to move around, but it’s a claustrophobic environment full of things you know you shouldn’t be considering. It’s madness. When I went to pick up my lenses I subconsciously began to walk into HMV. I didn’t realize I was going in until it donned on me that my objective was not to spend a hundred dollars on things I didn’t need…weeks before Christmas. It’s come to that point– Christmas cruise control.
I don’t hate Christmas, but every year I find myself giving in to it less and less. I love my family and I always enjoy the tradition of returning home for the usual dinner, presents, extended family fiascoes; I don’t care to hang from the grapevine, I just like to see them. Sometimes once a year is enough. But every year it’s harder to find things I need/want for Christmas. This year I narrowed the field down to money and nothing. You see, I know my parents don’t want to buy me a Nintendo 3DS. They don’t think I’m too old for it; they just think that I can do better.
I really can’t.
Last year I asked for a new bed. Fine. Done. Now I have a bed. (I had a bed before; it was given to me for the first non-family house I moved into out of residence…I remember having a dog when I last slept in the bed before it, and I haven’t had a dog in seven years). I also asked for a small TV, a tool which has provided me with countless reasons never to leave the bed. Fine. Done.
Now what?
Nothing. That’s what. TV and bed are essentials. Everything else I can buy for myself. I’m not trying to make it any more difficult; I’m just not a child anymore. I don’t crack open the Sears Wish Book every year nowadays and circle shoddy tents shaped like Simba anymore, I don’t build Mechano, and I never got half the board games I asked for in the first place. I used to do this every year. I used to write letters to Santa (H0H 0H0, postal code). I used to open the same non-chocolate advent calendars every day in anticipation. I used to give in to shopping like a fiend.
Now I don’t shop. Now I don’t think about it. Now I wait for Christmas to pass.
Just as I have to change glasses every six years (yes, I should change them more frequently), maybe I need to shift out of the festive spirit around Christmas. Maybe, save the emergency essentials, I have all I need. I’m not a Scrooge– I know that much. Maybe I just miss living in a snowbelt. All I can say for sure is that I’m ready for everyone else’s eternal holiday rush to be over. Let me get back to wearing my glasses out.