Day Twenty
Eight: Outside there’s a box car waiting
Let me get
one thing straight because I’m tired of repeating it or having awkwardness
between me and people I’ve just met or people I haven’t seen in a long
time. Friends, I am legally blind. This means that I can function independently,
but if I see you in passing and I don’t recognise you it’s not my fault. I can’t recognise faces, I can do voices if I
have seen you recently, otherwise dude I have no idea who you are. It sucks, it sucks more for me than you trust
me, but please stop getting awkward when I don’t know who you are. Just tell me.
Wow, glad
that’s off my chest. I’ve just been
having strings of awkward situations lately, and I don’t really know how to
deal with that yet. I assume that twenty
years down the line I’ll be in a grocery store picking out oranges and someone
I knew in ninth grade will come up to me and go “Jess? Jessica Watkin? I thought it was you how are you!” and I will
stare, and kind of smile weakly, and hope that over the course of this awkward
exchange I will figure out who was recognising me before they realised that I
don’t remember them. I’ve got a great
memory for people, but only when I can figure out who they are. What I’m trying to say is I have accepted that
I’ll never be able to see much better than I can now, and I just want
everything to be cohesive in my life, and I don’t want to have to make anyone
feel uncomfortable because I can’t see their face.
I deal with
it everyday, the least you can do is just tell me who you are.
I’m no
longer bitter about my condition, because I have grown and am strong because of
it, it just becomes difficult in certain situations. In other words, my lifelong struggle will be
that every new person I meet I will have to address the fact that no, I cannot
recognise you, and yes, I can still function as a human being. I love meeting
new people, I hate that this inability to recognise creates a barrier between
how close some people get to me, and I do my darnedest to overcome that by
overcompensating and being very bright and encompassing, passionate, whatever,
but sometimes the rift still exists. I
deal with it, seriously, every single day.
It’s exhausting.
The funny
thing is about this whole thing is that….I can’t believe I’m going to say this,
but, I probably wouldn’t have it any other way.
This is me. On top of the
quirkiness, the absurdities that make up my life, I just can’t see. I can’t drive, I can’t scuba dive, I can’t do
some things and that’s fine. I can backpack
through Europe, and fly on planes, and ride horses and climb mountains, and
read books and take the bus and sing songs and live. That’s just it guys, despite everything, I
can still LIVE. Life is fleeting, life
is infectious and lovely and hard, but I’m doing it. I’m right here, damnit,
and I am just going for it.
So to
everyone who has any other questions:
Yes, I can see that there are two fingers infront of me eyes, but
everyone has brown eyes to me. No, I
don’t have a driver’s license and can’t pick you up from the bar, but I’d be
glad to call a cab for you. No, I can’t
read the drinks menu at starbucks but I usually just ask the barista what they
like to drink and take their word for it.
I do things, just like you, but I do them differently, and I probably
have a much better time doing it.
Love
always,
x
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