The Adventures of the Blind/Low Vision/Visually Impaired (BLOVI) Girl-The Last Blog: One more special message to go, then I’m done and I can go home.
I am writing this last blog on the two year anniversary of my accident. In the last three blogs I focused on letting go of fear and the outcome and trusting in God. All these things have led me to be able to be open enough to live my unlived life, to do the things I always wanted to do. That is the focus of this blog. I am dispensing with the usual format to also talk about what I can see now, the things I miss about not seeing and the gifts my visual impairment have brought me.
My visual acuity is the same as it was a year ago, 20/400 and 20/800, but what I see has changed. My evolving brain is continuing to do a better job putting things together. So my depth perception is better, my color perception is better at times, and my brain knows how to fill in the gaps. My vision fluctuates daily, depending on the time of the month or if I have a headache or sinus pressure. There is no part of my visual field that is clear, even in the periphery. And there are some unusual aspects of my vision, like that I can see really attractive or really unattractive people better than I can see most people (which I think has to do with symmetry). I can fool most people into thinking I am fully sighted, most people have no clue until I tell them. I can navigate well, can run and ride the Ped E Cab with no problems, and have lots of ways to read and work. In many ways I have continued to adapt and find the tools I need two work and live. My next purchase is the IPad 3 (which I am hoping is as awesome as everyone says it is).
There are some things I miss doing and seeing like driving, reading a book I am holding in my hand and turning the pages, being able to relay see the beauty of nature and hiking difficult trails. There are so many times I wish I could look at my daughter and see her face in detail (which is why I take pictures). I miss being able to tell what people are feeling because I am missing some of the unspoken language of facial expression. Sometimes I miss really being able to see my face or body, but in the end it has been very freeing. I also miss being able to see when Sadie is practicing writing in that moment or seeing her in the process of drawing. I can see it after under the magnifier, but it is not quite the same.
I have been given many gifts as a result of the accident. The knowing that we can survive almost anything and have amazing strength. The ability to see people for who they are and in their essence because I cannot really tell what they look like. The appreciation for the beauty of the world, which I can no longer see in detail, but in abstract. The growth that only comes from suffering and being humbled. The connection I have developed with God and the trust I have gained. The loss of the fear of the unknown and the ability to not only live with, but appreciate unpredictability and uncertainty. The confidence I have in myself and the willingness to continue to live a life that involves risk. The knowledge that I have the ability to forgive those that left after the accident because people just do the best they can. In the end I see myself as the same. I have chosen to be abled and not disabled, and I have chosen to have good boundaries and to be happy.
What this all has led me to is that I am, in sum, more open to life and to living that life. And what that means is living the unlived parts of life that I always suppressed or ignored. I could not be open if I had not done the work to accept what happened to me as part of my past and something I cannot change. In the stages of grief, acceptance is the last phase that allows you to move forward. I came to that place quickly and for that I am grateful.
For me, living my unlived life has meant doing all the things that I imagined would be awesome and make me happy. It was going back to what I wanted to be when I was little—I wanted to act, dance and sing. So since my accident I learned an instrument and took vocal and dance lessons. I will continue to dance and to sing and now that the songwriting has come out of nowhere and does not seem to be stopping, I am going to put my songs to music and arrange them with the help of others and maybe perform and record them. I want to take ballet next so I can dance in a high level contemporary dance class by January. And I will write the book based on this blog.
Living my unlived life also meant challenging myself to do physical things I never thought I could do. So this fall I really want to run a half marathon and next year (a year late) I will participate in a sprint triathlon. I am nurturing my spiritual side by studying the Baha'i faith, something I ran across years ago but did not pursue. And I will continue to work on my relationship with and connection to God. I am not sure what will happen next in my work life. All I know is that I love what I do and would like to do more of it and reach more people. Because I am deserving of and open to love, I know that one day I will find a stable, loving partner (and it would be a real bonus if he could look like Johnny Depp).
I am continually thinking about how to teach all these lessons to my daughter. How do I raise a child that is open to life and its myriad experiences and has the strength and wisdom to listen to her soul’s calling. One thing I know is that I am modeling that for her (and I know she is watching). The other thing I do is expose her to a range of experiences from which she can choose. And I try to always respect who she is and forget about what I would like her to be.
I do not know what is coming or what my life will be like in a month or year from now. What I do know is that in this present moment, two years after my accident, I am more fully alive, more grounded, more joyous, more wise and less angry, less scared, and less bitter or jaded than I was before the accident. That is what I call a miracle!
I want to thank all those who have been on my side these last two years. Thanks to all of you who have read the blog. I wrote it for me, as catharsis, but I hope readers took some nuggets away from reading it. The title of the blog, once again, is a Nirvana lyric. Here is the next line: “Love myself, better than you; I know it’s wrong, so what should do?” So try and love yourself and be open to everything. Be in the moment, pay attention, seek beauty and truth and laugh a lot. And keep moving forward, no matter how deep you are sinking into the muck.
No comments:
Post a Comment