Blind people are just....people

Seven years ago… (my memory is a little foggy but i’m sure it went something like this)

“I’ve been to see the specialist,” I said slowly. Nervously. It wasn’t like me to be nervous. “He says he doesn’t know how much sight I’m going to lose, or how quickly.”

I felt like telling him he could leave if he wanted to, and I wouldn’t blame him. Yes, things had been going really well, but we’d only been together a couple of months. A broken girlfriend probably wasn’t what he had in mind.

He nodded thoughtfully. “So… when do you get a guide dog? You love dogs. Or do you get a cane first?” He grinned. “I can’t wait to move things round the house so you can’t find them and trip you up with your cane! It’ll be great; winding you up is going to be so much easier now!”

Even now, seven years later, I can’t think of anything that he could have said that would have been better. In those few sentences, he made me feel like it was just a fun challenge we were going to get through together. He pointed out the perks (like a free dog). But more than that, he told me that I was still the same person to him now as I had been five minutes before I told him.

Blind people must wish their sight was better

I realised not so long ago that I have become somewhat attached to the unusual way in which I view the world. In short, if someone offered me a pill that would restore my sight to a full 180 degrees of vision I would be inclined to say no. Although my blindness does not define me, it is responsible for a lot of my history, personality and behavior. Saying goodbye to my visual impairment would be like saying goodbye to part of me, much like when I said goodbye to my sight and the future I envisaged for myself aged 15.  Why go through that again when I’m happy as I am?

I have explained this to multiple people, usually to looks of confusion and stuttered broken questions as they struggle to understand how anyone could be truly happy with about 10 degrees of vision; but I think the most notable response came from my mother and my sister :

“How utterly ridiculous. You don’t mean that. You’re just being stubborn.”

Blind people have lower standards

*names have been changed

My housemate and I had gone to our friend *Tom’s house for dinner and games. There were quite a few people there, including many that I had not met before. One of these happened to be a particularly lanky ginger. Let’s call him nitwtit. He was really rather interesting with a lot to talk about, and it wasn’t until my housemate and I began our walk home that the story really emerged.

Clearly half-entertained, half-outraged, my housemate filled me in on a conversation that she’d overheard as I was in the bathroom.

Nitwit: “I’m having a great night! Thanks, Tom. The girl I’m talking to seems cool.”

Tom: “Yeah, she’s great- did you realise she’s actually really blind?”

Nitwit: “Oh, no way! I might actually stand a chance with her then!”

I remained friends (JUST friends) with Nitwit and am still waiting for the perfect moment to remind him he said this.

Blind people use canes

As you can imagine, I don’t go around declaring my visual impairment to the world or to every single human that I meet. That does mean that I sometimes lose track of which acquaintances know and which don’t.

A large group of us were in an airport waiting to fly to an awesome European destination for a photography adventure.  As we vacated some chairs to walk towards our gate, I flipped out my cane like a light saber, pointed it at a 30 degree angle towards the floor and began to follow the crowd.

At which point one of the boys in my group shouted across the airport lounge, “Crikey girl! You’re keen, getting your selfie stick out already!”

This happens a lot. Which upsets me because I have a deep and rooted hatred of selfie sticks.