The nerdy kid

My family was huge when I was growing up. There was my mum, my dad, my two brothers, my three sisters, and me. I was the second youngest. We also had a whole heap of pets. Two cats, two dogs, and a chicken. Most of my childhood was spent growing up on a farm in rural Victoria. We were all home-schooled for quite a few years, but I found it boring and wanted to be pushed more. I absolutely loved reading, doing puzzles and being a nerd. My siblings on the other hand enjoyed being home-schooled as it meant they got to muck around and spend heaps of time outside. This wore thin for me. 

When my parents told me that we would be moving to Melbourne I was honestly over the moon. I was so excited to experience life as I’d seen it on TV. In a proper school with proper school friends. The only issue was that two days in, I absolutely hated it. We were given a reading task where we had to read something off the board and I couldn’t make out any of the words. Everything was blurred and I felt really dumb. Keep in mind I was only seven years old at this point and had never needed to look at a whiteboard before from a distance. My parents decided to take me to the eye doctor. Bayside is where we ended up moving and there were a lot more shops there than in the farm areas I was used to, so it was easy to get an appointment.

I had never been to an optometrist before. In fact, I had hardly ever been to a doctor before. When living on the farm we would kind of just deal with things then and there. My parents took me to the most recommended paediatric optometrist near me and they informed us that I was in fact short-sighted. Since that day I have been wearing glasses. My family all joke that it is because I read too much.