The Adventures of the Blind/Low Vision/Visually Impaired (BLOVI) Girl-Volume 39: Testing My Limits
Last week I hiked for the first time since my accident and after getting up a fairly steep climb I realized I was going to have an extremely difficult time getting back down. What it made me realize is that I am constantly testing the limits of what I can and cannot do and often I don’t know where those limits are until I am in the situation. That is the focus of this week’s blog. But first………………..
My WTF of the week is the fact that my house is infested with house flies. I have no clue where they came from, but only know that they can reproduce quickly. Because I sometimes cannot see those pesky insects I don’t think I realized the scope of the problem until one morning when I went into the kitchen and heard a loud buzzing sound which obviously was coming from a large gaggle, murder, swarm or whatever you call a whole hell of a lot of flies. I attempted to catch them with honey because I had heard the expression, “it’s like catching flies with honey”. I don’t know who coined that phrase but they were not that clever because I caught 0 flies. I did not make a whole lot of effort to kill them. I kept opening the door and asking them to leave while waving my hand in the appropriate direction, and sometimes I wacked at them with a flip flop. But, after a few people commented that I seemed to have a fly issue I felt I needed to do something. So I sent my boyfriend after them with a folded up OK magazine. Since I can no longer keep up with entertainment news I figured the magazine would be good for something. He had a technique for fly killing that involved an in depth understanding of how a fly moves when approached, i.e., it moves backward and directly into the path of killing he had crated. He managed to kill about 30 flies. Then my daughter wanted to get in on the fly killing action and he taught her the techniques. Turns out she is a relentless fly killer. She just went after them--whacking them over and over while making karate like noises. Then I got in on it and found the killing very satisfying and a great way to release anger. In total about 60 flies have lost their lives in my house, but there are more, so every day I engage in a few rounds of swat the flies. I don’t condone taking lives. I usually try and save the creatures desperately trapped inside my home. But the flies must go and so the killing continues.
This week I can’t get enough of my new wig. After my success with hair extensions I decided it would be great fun to try on some wigs. They have a great wig shop in Asheville, so while I was there I decided to go in and look at the wigs just for the hell of it. Next thing I know I am trying on 6 different wigs, all long, and of various colors and cuts (including one I called the Kat Von D). The first wig I picked up off the shelf and tried on was a blonde wig and in a huge shocker none of the wigs after compared. I even got compliments from others in the store about how natural it looked. So the wig is super long with layers, down almost to the waist in the back and has bangs. And of course it is completely age appropriate. When I showed my daughter the wig and decided to go to the store with it on she decided that I should pretend like I was the “very younger sister” of mommy and she named me Pia and decided to name my boyfriend Toter. So Pia, Toter and their niece went to the mall and grocery store. My daughter also instructed us that we had to adopt new voices to go with our new personas so I decided to do an 80’s valley girl/Clueless voice and Toter somehow sounded like Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade. So what I discovered is blondes get more attention from guys. I had on no makeup and workout clothes and still got some pretty serious stares. With my extensions (and from the Millionaire Matchmaker), I had already learned that guys like long hair. Now I know that it is true that Gentlemen prefer blondes. Think of what I could do with makeup, a good outfit, the wig and my miracle bra. World domination could be possible. As long as I don’t adopt the Pia persona.
There were two things that I had not done since my accident that I tried out on my recent vacation in the mountains; kayaking and hiking. I own a kayak and had gone down the river some before the accident and really liked it. So when I ended up at Lake Lure I decided it was time to kayak again. I chose a two person kayak just in case I could not navigate and we went around the lake for two hours. What I learned is that kayaking on the lake was no problem and as long as I was following someone else I would have even been fine alone. The only problem is that I could not have made it back to the dock where we started if I would have been alone and gotten lost. But since that is unlikely in a kayaking situation, especially on a river, I think I will be doing more kayaking in the future.
Hiking was another story. I had some problems finding the trail heads and once in had to concentrate to see the trail markers. So hiking alone, unless I am on a very familiar trail, is not a great idea. Going up was not a problem at all on somewhat of a steep climb with some stairs but about three-fourths of the way up to the lookout point I looked back down the trail and realized I was going to have a tough time getting down. Going down a mountain had never been easy for me admittedly because I am a huge klutz with little balance. So, when you add visually impaired and no perception of depth it seems as if a fall was inevitable. I was actually angry at myself for not realizing sooner that I was going to struggle to get back down, even though I know going down steps is almost three times as hard as getting up them. But for some reason I did not think this applied to trails in the mountains. I got back down, slowly and with only a few near falls, but it took every ounce of concentration I had. What I learned is that I would have probably been OK on less steeper trails, but the more challenging ones, at least for now, are not an option.
What these experiences made me think about is that I really have no clue what I can and cannot do until I actually do them. There is no way to predict whether I can handle myself or not or whether it will be risky or not. So I tend to live my life testing my limits and most of the time I go into things with the attitude of “I can probably find a way to pull this off”. And when I don’t, which is actually rare, I don’t get too disappointed, because I figure I can just do it when I get my sight back. I have tried more new things and challenged myself more as a visually impaired person than I did as a sighted person and in a way I take more risks. Living this way is really freeing and there is not much fear associated with new challenges, only the excitement of doing them. Testing your limits and not thinking about things, just doing them, is a way that everyone can choose to live. I have learned that it is true that all options are open and the only way to know if you can do something is to just do it with a positive attitude, giving it your best. So that is what I will continue to do-test the limits and challenge myself every day.
Keep Moving Forward,
Beth (BLOVI) Medlock
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