April 11, 2013-Volume 79: Some Lessons Learned

The Adventures of the Blind/Low Vision/Visually Impaired (BLOVI) Girl-Volume 79: Some Lessons Learned

This week a short blog (because I am actually trying to finish my book proposal) about some interesting lessons I have learned just in the last week or so. But first…………..

My WTF of the week is the fact that I fell headlong into the generation gap, one I kept denying was there in the first place. I consider myself cool, up to date; I listen to the Gen Y music, emulate their fashion, use strange terms like that is toats fab”, but I am learning they know jack about my generation. In a recent conversation with a  Gen Y person I mentioned that my recently relocated to NYC friend had an amazing celebrity sighting his second day in the city: Carol Burnett. I expected to get some kind of reaction like OMG that is huge, she is so darn famous. But what I got was “who is that”.  I repeated, you know the Carol Burnett show. Blank look on the face indicating no clue. So then I say, I think that was better than my Chelsea sighting of Jessica Lange and Sam Shepherd and again, blank look and “nope, I have no clue who they are”. Unbelievably I say, you know Jessica Lange, 70's King Kong, Tootsie, no, never seen those movies, no clue. How is this possible? It is possible because I am a Gen X’er in my mid- forties who grew up with these stars and these youngsters do not know or do they care to watch older movies or reruns. If I can walk and talk and know crap in your world, they should know crap in mine, right? My dauber is going to be retro cool, like me, who is obsessed with my mother’s late 60’s furniture and can sing along with the Best of Bread. SO she is watching the Brady Bunch.

This week that is what I just can’t get enough of, the absolute innocence and sometimes naivety of the Brady Bunch, which my seven year old daughter is now watching and enjoying. This is the antithesis of the Nick/Disney shows. The parents are in the show as central figures, the children are respectful and mostly kind to each other and when they made mistakes they actually feel guilty, show remorse and apologize. The parents are trusting yet fair and also let the kids work through their own problems. In a recent episode Gregg gets caught smoking and then a pack of cigs falls out of a coat that is not his. His parents totally believe him when he says they are not his (OK, so this would have never happened to me in the 80’s-my mom would have said something like I know those are yours, don’t give me that crap). But Tom and Carol say something like “well you have done some things we have not liked, but you have never lied to us before, so we believe you”. And then the kid whose cigs they are cops to it to both Tom and Carol and his own mother. This is amazing! I am using the Brady Bunch to teach my daughter useful life lessons which are mostly look how those kids respect and listen to their parents and how honest they are. Now if I could just find Partridge Family reruns for some good single parenting family situations.

I often give a talk about the things I know to be true, which is really positive and motivational. But there is a dark side to some of the things I know to be true, and that is what I want to capture here. A brief list of things I have learned on my walk on this planet and believe me, this is just a partial list based on recent incidents.

1)    When a guy says I know I told you that story and he did not and yet he insist he did, he is talking to someone else and does not remember who he told the story to-you are in a queue, one of the many.

2)    When people say they are trying to protect you but did not tell you what from and why they are concerned and have a meeting wherein you are discussed but no one will tell you what was said, they are really trying to protect themselves or their faith or institution-it really has nothing to do with you and you were probably in the wrong place at the wrong time.

3)    If people want you to leave town and they mention a lot of times how it is time for you to leave town and suggest you should sell your house “as is” and quickly and then you get an affidavit saying it is OK for you to move, then they are trying to get rid of you. OK, this is blatant and they are somehow of afraid of you.

4)    If someone, after talking to others about you, says they can't talk to you for a few days to decompress, this means they likely need time to figure out what and how much they are going to tell you, may feel guilty or they need time to make up an alternate version of what they said. Unfortunately I have found the latter to be truer, so check for tire tracks on your back.

5)    If you are told that you look good for your age, this is not at all a compliment. I want to look good for a 35 or 36 year old. This just means you actually look your age and are attractive and that is not at all acceptable. In addition if someone says that a cosmetic procedure could probably make you look better, book the appointment immediately.

6)    If you get accused of being things you are not or maybe just a little of, just a little of the time (and you are not in denial) it is likely someone is projecting their own issues onto to you. I call this the pot calling the kettle black conversation and I have had many of them. So if you feel projected upon which you will know from an icky slime coating and the feeling that what they are saying just does not apply, just start calling them Pot. Like, “that’s great Pot” or “you are so right about that Pot”.

These are six of the dozens and maybe hundreds of things I have learned and these are just from this week. Life is never boring and lessons can always be learned.

Keep Moving Forward,

Beth (BLOVI) Medlock

April 3, 2013-Volume 78: Seeker, Explorer, Quicksand Avoider

The Adventures of the Blind/Low Vision/Visually Impaired (BLOVI) Girl- Volume 78: Seeker, Explorer, Quicksand Avoider

I am a risk taker, a woman with tons of questions, a processor, a pusher of boundaries, a moving forward type of gal.  And that may not be expected, given my disability. I am learning that the chaos and crazy in my life, which I did not cause, nor can control, may be because of this.  I am shamelessly borrowing this analogy from my therapist; that me as explorer, as seeker means I get into dangerous places that may have slippery slopes or quicksand. My job is to quickly figure out how to get out of it or to go around it and that is the focus of the blog.  But firs……………………..

My WTF of the week is the resistance that has developed to doing my work of writing the book proposal for my book, which has a working title of EnLIGHTtened: How Losing My Sight Gave me Vision. Every time I go to write the proposal I get stuck or just sit there looking at the few outlines for the format and avoid sections I don’t feel like addressing, which in the end is the entirety of the proposal. So far I have written about a page of what should be a proposal of 30 to 40 pages and I have been “working" on this for 2 weeks. I went back to the book The War of Art which does a great job at discussing resistance and tried to figure out why it is occurring (boredom, fear of success fear of failure, etc.). And what I figured out is that writing a proposal is structured and tedious and not at all what I want to be writing. Nonetheless, I have rededicated myself to this proposal process because I am giving myself a reward when that and the query letter to literary agents is finished- a trip to NYC and maybe an I Pad.

This week I can’t get enough of the fact I have booked my first post-accident flight to NYC where I will spend my 45^th b-day with my partner in crime as I call her to visit my bestest  male friend (BMF) ever. . This is my first trip flying blind, so to speak, but since I am flying with a friend I could get no special assistance, because I asked. They also could not fill my request for making sure a good looking guy was sitting in our row, between us. I am staying with my newly relocated to the big apple BMF who recently said a great thing to me. I asked, when you move in with he who will not be named in this blog will we still be able to talk like we do. He said: Beth I would never let a man come between us.  I am also wearing his great-grandmothers diamond ring because he did not want to take it to NYC and I offered to provide a good and stable home for any and all jewelry. He was not sure it was real but today I confirmed that it is. When I texted him that the ring was real and according to the jeweler, a nice gift, he said I told you I would give you a diamond ring one day.  And now he will be living the fabulous single, no kids’ life in the big city that I secretly dreamed about living and I am a little jealous. But I plan to show up in NYC as often as they will let me crash at their place and I will bring a fabulous host gift, and maybe a friend or two.

March was a chaotic month (truly March madness) and this one has started off with a bang, and a crash and a burn and they are not happy accidents, they are train wrecks. The wrecks are over legal matters, relationships, friendships, parenting, home repairs, etc. etc. etc. I am left wondering, did I cause these, what was my role, or is it all just coincidence. Sure, I would like to think the latter, but this is a recurring theme and a theme means a pattern and a pattern means you are somehow accountable.  Recently I have been accused of and called many contradictory things; insecure, needy, too independent, not knowing how to ask for help, asking for too much help, running my mouth, not disclosing enough, vacillating, not giving people the benefit of the doubt, and letting people take advantage of me. My all-time favorite and admittedly at times true statement is that I am not being a very good blind person.   How can I be all these things and if I am all these things did I cause this entire sh*t storm.

What I know to be true is that I am some of those things some of the time and others none of the time, but what I am all of the time is the seeker and explorer, out there pushing limits, risk taking and turning over new ground and new leaves. And when you are an explore you are sometimes in unchartered water or territory and given I am visually impaired these are literally and figuratively hard to navigate. One situation that arose that I will just call a Baha’i Backdraft arose because of the lack of knowledge of a new territory.

When you are an explorer you must have gear and especially things that protect your head, but also your heart. From objects being hurled at you by your raging child or crap dropped on you by the douchebag of the day. In my book I describe my approach to relationships as jumping off a cliff and forgetting to put on the parachute realizing that device would have been useful halfway down, mostly to soften the impact. I found a parachute this last go round and I already have other tools for exploring and some I figure out I need while in the midst of the exploration.

When seeking and exploring you come upon dangerous obstacles, some which are obvious and others which are not. The quicksand, which looks like any other sand, is especially dangerous because you are in it unprepared and all you can do is react in the moment. Once you hit the quicksand you just do what I always tell people to do, do not struggle and let go. If you relax completely and move slowly it will let you go unharmed. Some people are quicksand, they draw you in and it is not until you are being sucked down that you realize soon you won’t be able to breathe. Other obstacles are more obvious once you get close to them so you can problem solve and grab the tools in your tool bag to scale the wall or cross the stream  or handle whatever is in front of you. In a situation with me ex-husband I am now backed up against a wall and will be using tools to get around it or knock it down.

So me, as seeker and explorer cannot help but come upon danger and chaos, it is inevitably unavoidable and in the final analysis, without it life would be uninteresting. I feel comfortable in this role but I am learning that it makes others uncomfortable, especially since my accident because a visually impaired person, even one who is passing, should not be acting this way. Hence the myriad manes and labels placed upon me as a push forward kind of woman, armed with sling blade, parachute and assorted ax grinding tools.  Deal with it, because I can, and I am not changing strategy or tactic.

Keep Moving Forward,

Beth (BLOVI) Medlock

March 27, 2013-Volume 77: Food Fast Success, Men Fast Failure

The Adventures of the Blind/Low Vision/Visually Impaired (BLOVI) Girl-Volume 77: Food Fast Success, Men Fast Failure

Recently I fasted for 19 days, sunup to sundown for the Baha’i fast. Although it was challenging at times, and more so because I just could not seem to eat much early in the morning, I was successful and through it gained some clarity. But lately I have also been on a dating fast and this fast has lasted way longer than 19 days. In this fast, the man fast, I am not getting clear, just getting frustrated and bored. Success at the food and not at the men is the focus of my blog.  But first………..

My WTF of the week is my first concert experience (Taylor Swift) with my 7 year old. She loved it and I loved being with her and watching her enthusiasm, awesomely loud singing and continuous booty shaking, but I had to listen to two hours of Taylor Swift and there is a little problem there. I am sure it is verboten to talk in a not so nice way about such a nice sweet and constantly dating and breaking up girl, but this is not about her, so call off your dogs. I am visually impaired and we were sitting in the disability accessible seats which were at the top of the venue with a little overhang which was good for noise but meant I could see nothing of the stage and not much of the screens (those are called junbotronics says my daughter). What I could see was the light show and the strobes. Strobes and other flashing lights are painful when you have a blown permanently dilated pupil (although this was nothing compared to the Flaming Lips 2011 debacle). What this all means is that without a real sense of visuals I am really paying attention to the music and the singing and the acoustics and that is where it gets dicey. The electronic drum kit was just too loud and had too much reverb and on the rock-like songs I could not even really hear her singing or even the guitar, I wanted to go tell someone to adjust the sound because the band does not sound tight in any way and it is perturbing to me, but you just can’t do that. I got some relief on the acoustic only songs which were more enjoyable, but I was just hanging in there waiting for it to be over and if I could have seen a smart phone I would have been doing something else, like the other parents around me. But I have nothing else to do but LISTEN. And I am sure the show with all the dancers and costume changes was fantastic, but I just could not get the whole experience. So once again, not at all Taylor Swift’s fault. Not sure why I am afraid of offending Taylor Swift.

This week I can’t get enough of the new LA Shrinks show on Bravo. Since they are psychologists and not psychiatrists I object to the word shrink being used, but otherwise I am in love with the therapists and their clients. Dr. V says exactly what I would say in so many situations it is scary. My favorite comments are to date, when a woman says that her man’s member it is just too big and Dr. V says I think she is just afraid of sex, or you may think you are bipolar but maybe you are just a moody bitch. I find myself writing things down and saying, oh yes I am using that one. If she starts using my lines like, are there others invited to this pity party or when are you going to crawl out of your sh*thole, then I will know we are kindred. I am also in my two week countdown to the new season of Mad Men. I will have my super magnifier crazy binocular glasses out to enjoy set decoration and wardrobe and I am sure it will inspire a room redo. Plus the show is just fantastically written and the Betty Draper character is fascinating to me. This also means True Blood starts soon and the binoculars come out for that one too, for very different reasons. True Blood/Mad Men Sunday nights are the best TV watching ever. I am ready!

I am a newbie at fasting. I have not been inspired to fast for health reasons or do a master cleanse or a juice diet. The thought of just drinking stuff is not that appealing. The closest I have been to fasting is during undergrad when I had to live off a 10 dollar food budget per week and lived off Bisquick, ramen noodles and 25 cent pot pies. But that is not really fasting, that is just being broke. So in March as a new Baha’i I took on the 19 day fast, read about it, downloaded prayers and was ready for a spiritual endeavor.

The first few days were difficult because I had to eat before 6:30 am and I just can’t get food down at that time, so not much was consumed. I was tired much of the first week and had to take naps, and sometimes got dizzy if I burned too many calories during the day (which somehow turned into an excuse for not cleaning). I thought I would be famished and eat a lot at night, but found the first week when I ate I ate too fast and felt really sick, so I learned to graze, eating smaller portions of food every half hour and that worked better. I was also really irritable from 4pm on in what I called the “I could eat my toe I am so hungry” phase. And I was really, really cold, almost freezing and seemed to have no blood flow to my extremities; my fingers and toes white then bluish in the late afternoons. I constantly needed blankets and heat and I thought it was just me until I talked to other fasters and they said that was normal. The time change made things worse because I had to cook and feed my daughter an hour before I could eat which was torture. The first few nights when I could not eat until 7:30 I was shaking and had that weird not eating headache by the time I ate.

I started not really thinking about food at all during the day and in a way I had more time to think about other things and because of that was productive. I had more time because I was not snacking or preparing food or stopping to eat all day, and once the fatigue phase passed I was hard at work and I actually finished my memoir and started some other things. While I was literally listening to my gut, I started listening to my gut, my inner voice and gained clarity. The clarity I gained was about my relationship to others and my need to get out of some not so healthy relationships and to better handle some stressful situations that I just can’t get out of. I gained a sense of calmness and choice in knowing that if I could have enough self-control to not eat I could have enough self-control to make some better choices and enact them and I could have enough self-control to not worry about the not dating and that was OK. And or about a week after the fast I felt good. But as research shows, I depleted all my willpower during the fast and the not dating part started to really bug me. That fast, the no dating fast of many, many months and not really by choice, got super difficult and I just hit the wall.

During the man fast I have had a guy that I will call a delicious piece of my favorite thing, dark chocolate, waived around me in a friendship that can’t be anything other than a friendship. That friendship of several months with someone I am super attracted to has been a source of constant frustration.  Like there is a dark chocolate delicious dessert and it is always right in front of you, but you can't eat it and there are no other dessert options on the table. I have gone out looking for other tasty desserts, but there are none to be found.  So I had to completely take that desert off the table, so to speak. When it comes to men and things I like to do with men, I am not great at the fasting part. And I find myself setting the bar lower and lower, like I am just this close to being like the teacher in Ferris Bueller saying  anyone, anyone. And I ask myself why I am so bad at this, the man fast. I know other people can do this. I have friends that have not dated for years and they seem to be fine, And I try to convince myself at the 4 or 5 or 6 month mark that I am fine, I don’t need to date, but it is just not true. I get to a point that point I am now hitting where I just want to be taken on a nice date, get a nice meal, have someone tell me I kook nice and maybe have a make out session, Is this too much to ask? And as you may know, my internet dating days are long over. If you thought the EHellmony blog was scary, there is a section in the book about my experience on Match and how it will murder your soul and destroy your self-confidence (with details on seven dates including the 50 shades of gray choker guy).  So with no Internet dating and no time to go out, I am left without options or opportunities. Besides grocery stores and my kid’s school which is just weird. And when I make no effort I seem to still get nothing or the nutty and needy crowd. And I am so done with those men; I have no time to be their therapist or their mother.

So, for now, I am at the point where I have cleared the path and opened the door for a nice, nurturing and hopefully attractive man to find me. Maybe I should put on some of those road work blinking items or just wear a sign to make it easier, but that is not practical and I am back to the flashing lights problem. And I need to turn away from the exciting but “you are going to pay for it later” rich chocolate dessert men and be open to a vegetable of a man, one who is maybe not as interesting on the surface, but with the right seasonings can be appealing and is always good for you.

Keep Moving Forward,

Beth (BLOVI) Medlock

March 20, 2013-Volume 76: I'm Bringing BLOVI Back

The Adventures of the Blind/Low Vision/Visually Impaired (BLOVI) Girl- Volume 76: I’m Bringing BLOVI Back

I will begin by answering the burning questions you most likely have after my absence from the blog scene. One, I have not been blogging because I have been writing a book. Two, I am still single. Three, there has been and will not be, at least for many years, any change in my sight. Four, if you want to know what has happened in the eight months since I stopped the blog you are just going to have to read the book. I am a moving forward type of gal, but you already know that.  This week I will dispense with my usual blog format, which will be back next week and start with a few random thoughts I have been having lately. Then onto the focus of the blog, my first experiences on Twitter as a virgin tweeter.

I recently discovered the Harlem Shake. It is all over the Net. My daughter made me watch something like 20 Harlem Shake videos on YouTube while she giggled and then insisted we reproduce the Harlem Shake in my office. It is not that much fun with two people and I could only pretend I was working unawares of her dancing and then popping up only so many times. I think I have added a new item to my bucket list and that is to start the Harlem Shake in a public place. So my plan is to go to a crowded local bar and stand up and just start doing those lazy like dancing moves and see what others do. Actually this is where visual impairment helps out. I won’t really be able to see how many people are doing it or if everyone is just staring at me and if someone asks me what I am doing I can just say I thought I saw some others dancing and was just participating cause I don't see so well. No matter what it cannot turn out badly.

I have also encountered or maybe rediscovered a new female excuse for just plain old bitchy behavior, PMS. Recently I have heard two different guys tell stories of how they forgave women for their cra cra (a new and favorite phrase) behavior because they later said they were PMS'ing. So, I could really make this work for me for two reasons; I feel I have full blown PMDD and somewhere in my house I have that blind person white cane. With this combination I can maybe, just maybe, get away with some really good ranting and raving and a few accidently well placed blows by the white cane of course using the I did  not mean to do that I just can’t see very well and misjudged the trajectory of my cane and the distance to your crotch area. And in addition I am PMDD’ing and can’t be held accountable for anything I have said or done here. Of course I would never, ever do that.

Yesterday I found out about and applied for the new National Library Service Talking Books Program for us kind of blind or blind folks where we can now finally, in 2013, get digital versions of books for FREE. In 2010 when I had my accident I received the most fantastic yellow 10 pound cassette tape player and then upgraded to a unit which resembled a smaller version of an eight track player. So I ignored the Talking Book Service and the written catalog of books they sent me written in 10 point font (makes sense, right) and continued to pay for my downloads. Much progress has been made in these last 2.5 years, the NLS has gone digital. Alas, there is always a catch when things are free and here it is; the file format is not compatible with I Pads, Kindles. Nooks, any type of smart phone or any type of computer or any other technology you may already have in use. No, you get a special player from the NLS and I know what this means. I am guessing it is something that weighs over five pounds and somehow resembles a 1980’s Walkman. Because I happen to know that the more compact versions cost big bucks. But I am confident that there is an app that will convert these files to be used on an I Pad because there is an app for everything. Now all I need is an I Pad.

Where I am now is writing a blog about a book that is kind of based on this blog. The book, all 98,000 words and 298 pages of it must somehow make it into the literary world and I had no clue how to make that happen, newbie that I am. Gone are the good old days of sending your manuscript out to publishers and waiting for rejection letters. My creative coach says you must go out into social media and find your tribe and create interest. Oh how fun because you know how much I love social media networking. And the place to do this is the foreign land of Twitter. I don’t tweet, I cheat tweet, which means I linked my Life By Design Coaching Page on Facebook to Twitter so that my posts are tweets. I think I logged into Twitter once to set this up. I hear about tweeting, know about followers and think I should be concerned about being beat to the tweet, but was never sure about the actual purpose of tweeting or  how people can convey their thoughts in such few words. But since tweeting is necessary, I complied and set up a personal account on Twitter (I am supposed to now say something like Follow me on Twitter-LisabethMedlock).

I am frustrated with the blandness of the profile page because I just can't make it look non-boring and for some reason it won’t let me change my profile picture. I will continue to work on the overall design scheme. Then I was supposed to look for agents and publishers that published books similar to mine or memoirs in general so I started doing that and following them on Twitter, hoping beyond hope that some would follow me back. So far, after 4 days I have 22 followers and maybe a few are legit. Then I am supposed to tweet five times a week.  If tweeting meant something else I would have no problem with that number, but what the heck am I going to say in two sentences or less for five days especially given it is supposed to be commenting on books and have links to interesting, pithy and easily consumable bites of information. It just seems like a lot of work, but I am doing it. I am not really sure about the quality of my tweets and given I can’t see so well there are bound to be misspellings, some which could result in utter chaos or bring me a huge following. Think about it, there is only one letter that could change where to whore.

I probably need to take the time to do a Twitter workshop or look up how to get followers or ask a fellow successful tweeter how it is done, but I seem to have a low tolerance for learning curves. This has also been the reason why I am not such a good visually impaired technology consumer, because I refuse to use a smart phone (after the Siri just does not understand me incident) or learn how to zoom or do Voice Over in I Pad. The learning curve is something I am bored with, so, if you have any advice for me in my new foray into the world of Twitter, get in touch with me or tweet me or Facebook me or e-mail me or text me or hell maybe even pick up a phone and call me. If there is a cheat sheet or Crib notes I will also take those.

My next steps in the what I am calling “12 weeks to get an agent who will think my book and I rock Plan” is to produce a book proposal, so you will be hearing about that. And next week I am going to my first assistive technology forum. What this translates to is that I can play with stuff that is really useful to people like me but ultimately costs tons of money. Let’s hope I am wrong. And I am sure, as at this moment I am in day 18 of a 19 day fast, I will be sharing the joys of fasting next week, when my brain is nourished and working better.

Keep Moving Forward,

Beth (BLOVI) Medlock

July 25, 2012-The Last Blog: One more special message to go, then I’m done and I can go home.

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.

July 18, 2012-Volume 74: Are You There God, It’s Me, Beth

The Adventures of the Blind/Low Vision/Visually Impaired (BLOVI) Girl-Volume 74: Are You There God, It’s Me, Beth

My last four blogs are focused on how I have changed in the two years since my accident and the key things on which I am working to live a fuller life.  In the past two weeks I have talked about getting rid of fear, and letting go and not worrying about the outcomes.  In this, my second to last blog, I am going to focus on my process of learning to trust in God and the Universe. This has not been an easy task, because the Universe keeps kicking my butt. But I have learned to look beyond that to what is ultimately important. But first…………………..

My WTF of the week is SC Governor Haley’s vetoes of critical programs and services. Once again, I am embarrassed to say I live in this state and appalled at its politics. Here are some of the (I believe it was 81 items) she vetoed. What this says to me is that we do not care about educating our children, protecting our vulnerable populations or our environment, or moving into the 21^st century.  Now it is time for our legislators to override these vetoes. And I know this sounds passé, but this is neither a Republican issue nor a Democrat issue, they are human issues.

$10.1 million to support teacher pay raises

$1.9 million for the Arts Commission

$500,000 in Arts Commission grants

$1.5 million for technology for the Judicial Department

$1.2 million toward boosting enrollment at the Governor's School of Science & Math

$454,000 for SC Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault

$428,000 for Sea Grant Consortium

$250,000 for Charles Lea Center for the disabled

This week I can’t get enough of rediscovering things you have not watched in years.  After a night of singing Nirvana songs (as you know I have a PA system and wireless mike, so there are many home Karaoke nights) I decided to go on YouTube and watch the 1993 Nirvana Unplugged and then watched some interviews with Kurt and the whole band. I had not watched that Unplugged in over 10 years and I was again completely mesmerized by the brilliance, beauty and pain of it. And the last interviews with Kurt are hard to watch. He looks lost to the world-a 27 year old that is completely spent. But, there is something to learn in it and something to marvel in at the same time. Then I watched the Shirley Temple movie “Heidi”.  Everyone in my generation has seen Heidi multiple times because it used to come on after the Super Bowl every year.  But I had not watched it since childhood, and I saw it in a whole new way. Heidi is totally philosophical and has better life lessons than most self-help books. It deals with fear, loss, change, the need for a place to be safe, spirituality, etc.  And I still could not get through it without crying.  I advise you to watch Heidi as an adult. There are tons of great take aways.

One of the hardest things I have been working on is in trusting in the Universe and God. This means so many things. It means I believe that God has a plan for me; it means that everything is going to work out according to this plan; it means there is something to learn in everything that happens and that everything happens for a reason. These words are easy to say, but much harder to believe in and live by. Mostly, because I am not sure what God’s plan for me is and most of the time I think the Universe is just trying to see how much I can take. 

I can honestly say God and I were not on the best terms after the accident. I was not sure why I was handed this fate or dealt with a series of truly life changing, heartbreaking events. But then I started asking the question I continue to ask today, “In my blindness, what am I supposed to see?” And it was the asking of that question that caused me to begin to pay attention to the Universe and not try to control it. Like an investigative reporter, I began questioning, why, how and what. Sometimes you get answers, sometimes you don’t. But the important thing is to ask them and to be present enough to look for the answers. So how does this paying attention translate into what I do and how I live every day. What it means is that I am more tuned into my inner voice, more present in the moment, more aware about what is going on around me, more interested in reality and not illusions, and more concerned with authenticity and deep conversations. I am also more open to learning and exploring outside of my comfort zone (which is now a huge zone).

The second step in my journey was learning to trust in God and the universe. I truly believe and always have, that I am here for a reason and that I can and have impacted the world. But I also used to believe in two things which I now believe are ridiculous, bad luck and deserving something. Being raised Latin means you hear a lot about bad luck and  evil spirits (and the need for all sorts of things to ward them off).  I used to think I had a ton of bad luck because crazy, bad things were always happening to me. And I used to believe that God was playing a huge joke on me and that the goal was to pull the rug out from under me whenever I felt stable. Now I think this is all untrue. What has happened to me, all the lows and highs, are part of the plan for me and in those times I was supposed to be learning and growing; gaming strength, insight and a little bit of wisdom. Mostly so I could handle the next thing that came along.  And that is why I could handle the change in my vision and could move forward so quickly; my life had prepared me to do this. And I did not deserve what happened to me and no longer think people deserve what they get or “what goes around comes around”. What I know is that bad things happen to good people and what it boils down to is not putting negative energy out into the Universe.

My life continues to prepare me for whatever is next. Sometimes I get annoyed at God because I have no partner, or because my business is not doing well (like everyone else’s) or because I just can’t seem to catch a break. But in the end I know that this is all happening for a reason and as part of God's plan. So instead of being mad all the time or feeling I deserve something more or comparing my life to other’s (always a bad idea), I have decided to trust that she/he and not I know what’s up. Every day I repeat the affirmations “I trust in God”, “God has given me everything I need” and I ask for the vision and strength to carry out God’s plan for me.  It and I am still a work in progress, but the change has been powerful and positive.

Next week, in my final blog, I talk about how I am finally living my “unlived” life and my hopes for the future.

Keep Moving Forward,

Beth (BLOVI) Medlock

July 11, 2012-Volume 73: Letting Go of the Outcome and Living in the Moment

The Adventures of the Blind/Low Vision/Visually Impaired (BLOVI) Girl-Volume 73: Letting Go of the Outcome and Living in the Moment

As I said in the last blog, my last four blogs will focus on how I have changed in the two years since my accident and the key things on which I am working to live a fuller life.  The four things on which I have progressed, and on which I continue to work are getting rid of fear, letting go and not worrying about the outcomes, trusting in God and the Universe and living my unlived life by letting my inner voice guide me.  In this blog I talk about how I am learning to let things go and to not get caught up in the end result. This was particularly challenging for someone who had consulted in outcomes evaluation and strategic planning for 15 years. How my mindset has changed is the focus of this blog. But first……………

My WTF of the week is how bad things happen in three’s (and maybe even four’s and five’s). It seems as if a cloud of negative energy has been hovering over my house for the past two weeks, causing crazy stuff and accidents to happen.  There was the Ped E Cab Trifecta of a broken seat belt, a pedal falling off in a major intersection and the charger not working. There was another crazy hate e-mail. Four lights in the house that require me to climb up a big ladder went out in two days.  There was the trying to curl my hair too quickly curling iron drop that resulted in a large burn on my leg.  And the best was the massive hair extension knot that occurred while I was swimming. Let’s just say it involved almost all my hair and took 6 hours to get out. What the heck is going on? Does this happen to anyone else?  I am doing my affirmations to dispel the negative energy. I may need to smudge.

This week I can’t get enough of the Baha’i Faith.  Years ago, after I did my own comparative religion study by reading books on both western and eastern faiths, I decided my beliefs aligned closely with the Baha’i faith. I looked up the groups that met and then, interestingly, did nothing. A few months later I found myself back at or in the safety of what I knew, the Catholic mass. But that stint did not last long. I was reminded about the Baha’i faith as I was watching Super Soul Sunday on OWN (which you should be watching too). Oprah was talking to Rain Phoenix front The Office about his project Soul Pancake (which you should also check out). He is a Baha’i and was talking about his faith and said some awesome things like creativity is a form of prayer and how in the faith everyone and all religions and perspectives are accepted. So, even though I am not supposed to talk about religion, I am. Soon I will be saying, “Hi, I’m Baha’i:

I used to hold things tightly, to be driven and oriented toward making things happen.  I used to get anxious when I could not control things or get things right. Those things made me driven, on the one hand, but stressed on the other. I also did not handle loss well. There was a lot of self-flagellation when things did not go my way or turn out as I expected. That is who I was before the accident. In sum, a person who at times felt the weight of the world on my shoulders. But when the randomness of the accident occurred and in the aftermath so many people did not act like I expected and things did not go at all like I thought they would or should, I realized I cannot predict or control anything.  With my expectations and my plans completely shot, I had two choices; give up all control and let it go or drown in “what if’s”, remorse and regrets.

For the past two years I have been working on letting things go. First what this meant was realizing how little of life was in my control and how little I could know about what others thought of me or impact how they acted toward me. The letting go was of not only control and the feeling I could have an impact on other people's perceptions or behaviors; it was also a letting go of anger and forgiving others.  I have talked about forgiveness in past blogs and it has been a theme for me.  It all started with forgiving myself for causing the accident, I was the one that rigged the bands that knocked out my vision and it was an act of stupidity.  If I could not have forgiven myself for that, I would not be where I am. And if I could do that then I could forgive anyone. Letting go also meant letting go of who I was in the past and what I could do. The dreams and plans I had which in part relied on my ability to be a sighed person were no longer a possibility and I had to let go of those goals and create a new reality for myself and in that new reality, new expectations and new dreams. My new reality has just become reality and in this reality I don't focus much on the future or on how things will turn out.  Mostly because I have learned despite my best efforts and past notions that was somewhat of an intuit that I have no clue what will happen in the next month or week or day. And because I cannot predict, I do not live and act with the thought of how will this all turn out.  It’s a waste of my energy and time, and it is also freeing.

Letting go of the outcome means I try and focus on listening to my inner voice guiding me to do what I think I need to be doing in the present to best fulfill my mission in life and Gods’ plan for me.  I have things I want to do, of course, like write a book, but I am more interested in the process of the writing and don’t think much about what it will be or if it will get published or reach an audience. I am like this in my work life, I find myself not planning events ahead or thinking about marketing or coming up with a new way to draw in clients. My focus is just on putting out good stuff and working with my clients as best and authentically as I can.

Letting go has made me feel lighter. I know most of what other people do or think has nothing to do with me, that I really can't change people (especially those closest to me) and that there is no point in having an expectation or illusion of how things turn out, because that typically leads to disappointment. I have given up living in a world of illusion, which is a focus of A Course in Miracles, and have chosen to live in reality and to try and let that reality unfold and be revealed to me. I am neither the center of the universe nor master of the universe; I put my trust in God because that is his/her job. Because of all this, the weight of the world is no longer on my shoulders. And it feels awesome.

Two blogs left. Next week more talk on trusting in God and the Universe.

Keep Moving Forward,

Beth (BLOVI) Medlock