Blind Observations

Hi there, and Happy New Year! Over the last week or so I’ve been reading back over my first 32 posts and I noticed something that surprised me a little. I’ve never really talked much about what it’s like to be blind. I’ve talked about my thoughts and feelings regarding my blindness, but not so much about how my day-to-day life has changed. But how do you tell someone what that’s like? Is it possible to convey that to a sighted person?

On more than one occasion, people have told me about games they have played where they put on a blindfold and try to find their way around a room. I honestly do appreciate the sentiment, I know they’re not trying to be mean. But when you’re blind, you can’t take off the blindfold when the game is over, know what I mean? No, for me, and others like me, the blindfold is on all the time, and you just have to learn how to adjust to it.

Take eating for example. Cutting food and picking it up with a fork is harder than you might think. Usually what I end up doing is holding the fork in one hand and kind of feeling around with one finger of the other hand. Feeling where the food is makes it much easier to manage the fork. Of course, finger foods are no problem so I like to eat sandwiches or something like that whenever I can.

Toothpaste is the same way, it’s hard to get it on the brush so I have to feel with my finger while I’m squeezing the tube. Something just occurred to me though, maybe I could squirt the paste right into my mouth. I'll have to try that.

Being blind means that it’s hard to go looking for things. So it’s important for me to have a specific place to put everything. I have one particular spot on the kitchen counter where I keep my water glass. If I get distracted and set it down somewhere else it’s pretty hard to find it again, and it’s pretty likely that I’ll knock it over while I’m looking. I can’t tell you how many glasses I’ve knocked over and broken. That’s why we all use plastic cups now.

What it all boils down to is memorizing things. Memorizing where things are like my water or my mp3 player. Memorizing where all the furniture is so I don’t trip over it. Memorizing keystrokes on the computer. The mouse is useless to me now so I have to remember keyboard shortcuts to do everything. Everything I do takes more concentration now.

When I first went blind six months ago, I remember going to bed so exhausted every night. Even if I only sat around the house all day, which is usually what I did, I would be so tired because you have to concentrate so hard to do things.

Walking through the house is a good example. I have to always be touching things as I navigate the house, making a mental note of each thing I touch to guide me. Like anything else in life, this has gotten easier with practice. Sometimes I still slip up though.

There’s an area in the back part of our living room that I think of as kind of a black hole. It’s an open area where there’s nothing to touch. I can walk through it okay, but sometimes I get turned around, like if I stop to pet the dog or something. It’s so disorienting when I reach out my foot thinking that I’m in front of my chair and instead it’s the filing cabinet or something. And even though I know it’s the filing cabinet it takes me a minute to get my bearings because it’s just not what I was expecting. Have you ever been driving and you were sure you were going north, but you find out you were really going west the whole time? Even after you’ve discovered the mistake everything feels backwards because your mental compass is still turned around. It’s a disquieting feeling.

Well, like I said, it all gets easier with practice. Some of it has even been easy for me. I’ve always been a very organized person so learning to keep everything in its place was easy. And my memory has always been good which helps a lot. Also, I have good computer skills so I’ve been able to re-learn the computer pretty easily.

It’s kind of like God was preparing me for this all my life. That makes me feel good because it reminds me that He is in control and is taking care of me. At the same time it scares me; would He have gone to so much trouble if I was only going to be blind for a short time? That’s the worldly part of me talking and I try hard to ignore it. What’s a short time to God anyway?

So there are a few examples of what it’s like to be blind. I don’t think I’ve explained it very well. I’ll have to do some thinking on this and try to come up with some better descriptions sometime.

Isaiah 60:19 The sun shall be no more thy light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee, but the lord shall be an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory.