I hope to make this post a
practical answer to one of the other most common questions I get and a short commentary
on what I think is a silly idea in society.
People often ask, “What can you
see?” That’s a pretty hard question, since I could ask it in return. It’s not
blurry or fuzzy to me, but maybe it would be to you. I don’t know. I don’t
really feel like I should be able to see things better until it’s clear that
I’m missing something others are seeing.
Anyway, that often leads to
confusion over what I can and can’t see or do. My family still doesn’t always
know for sure, so we kind of just play it by ear. When I was younger, they used
to warn me about curbs and steps outside. Being stubbornly independent (and
probably prideful), I used to get ruffled when I had seen it and didn’t need
help. But I had to realize that it’s never going to be clear between us what I
see and that they were just trying to help. So now I just gladly take necessary
and unnecessary help. And this goes for everything else: screens, reading,
finding my way, etc.
There’s also the long-term
question of what I can and can’t do. Every kid is asked what they’re going to
be when they grow up. I’ve since learned that this is a little misleading. Life
is rarely one solid thing that you do (and hopefully we’re about something more
than our careers). But that question was a special challenge when I was a kid.
I couldn’t be a pilot, or a surgeon, or an interior designer, or a police
officer, or… I couldn’t be a lot more immediate things either. I couldn’t be on
sports teams (nor did I want to!) or get old enough to drive a car. My parents handled
it well. They didn’t lie to me and say that I could do whatever I wanted. That
would be nonsense. They did, however, try to think through what I loved and what
I was good at and help me believe I might be able to apply those things. And,
in the short-term, they tried to strike the balance between helping me and
pushing me to try on my own. We didn’t always succeed at finding that balance,
but eventually we got it. Or I should say we are getting it, because it’s a
continual process.
The key was accepting what I
couldn’t do and pouring my effort into what I could, with a dash of trying the
seemingly impossible, of course. : ) The results have been fantastic. I was
good at school (when I finally stopped daydreaming and applied myself). I
graduated but still didn’t know what I wanted to do. I’m a Christian, so,
whatever I ended up doing, I wanted to do it for God. I moved away from home
(Ohio to Texas!) and worked with a youth ministry for a few years while I
figured it out. I learned to work in office environments, navigating computer
adjustments and window relations (we don’t always have a good relationship, the
Sun and I : ) ). Then I went to college. By then, I knew that I loved to teach,
and began to consider becoming a professor. I had also picked up a love of
history and political thought, so I looked for those programs in a college. I
(thankfully) decided on history. I just graduated this year with my BA in
history, and I’m starting my MA in history this fall with an assistantship
position. The goal is to become a history professor, specializing in colonial
America and the era of the American Revolution.
That’s the big picture. But life
is usually a collection of smaller adventures and connections with people. At
this point, I feel it would be a disservice not to say that the thing that
helped me most was my faith. Trusting God to give me what I needed, even when
it didn’t look like I could move forward has been a growing process. Here’s a
few of those adventures:
Traveling on my own used to be
really frightening for me, and sometimes it still is. When I lived in Texas, I
flew between there and home several times a year. I had to learn to pick up
clues, ask for help, and not panic when things went wrong. And it became pretty
easy. In fact, I’ve also flown overseas (though not alone) for missions trips.
Daily traveling is a challenge as well. I lived in a small city for college until
recently. I was scared about moving off campus, because my family had always
driven me places (I grew up in the country). I didn’t know who would be there
for me. I had to fight against the feeling that I was completely alone or that
things weren’t quite fair for me. In reality, I was provided with the perfect
gradual introduction to bus-riding, through unexpected friends and eventually a
completely independent routine. Not being able to read the numbers on buses,
not being able to cross some of the streets (this city had a serious lack of
crosswalks), and learning to be able to catch my stop without being able to see
the sign in time were all hurdles. But I did it. I learned to commute on my own,
with a few mishaps of course. I would have never thought it possible when I was
younger, but now it’s proving a life-long skill. I recently moved to a major
metropolitan area for my MA. I am about to begin a new, and much larger,
commuting adventure.
During my BA, I also minored in
music. My family is very musical, but I had not received much formal training.
I remember my parents attempting piano lessons when I was eight years old, but
I was too terrified about not being able to read the music (I don’t like
letting people down). I have this distinct memory of sitting on a piano bench
at a lesson and crying. So, obviously, it didn’t last, but I wish it had. I
loved music, and later I wanted to learn an instrument. I finally dove in again
as an adult and took piano lessons. I didn’t know how to read music (other than
a random handful of rules), so I started from the beginning. Two years later, I
worked up the courage to audition for college lessons. And they gave me a
chance! I definitely wasn’t any more than a mediocre pianist, but I made lots
of progress. I might have found myself crying on a piano bench a few more times…
a few hundred more times. It was terrifying again, because I knew I was at a
double disadvantage (inexperience and visual impairment making sight reading
nearly impossible). But I don’t give up easily, so I learned to memorize
everything right away. I made it all the way through my minor, and I loved it!
I ended by playing one of my favorite pieces: the 2nd movement of
Beethoven’s Pathetique. I took a few lessons afterwards too, and my new teacher
enlarged my music as much as she could, and I discovered I had a natural ease
with sight reading (I did have to sight sing for some of the other classes, so
that’s probably why). I am so thankful to God for helping me through this. I
learned so many important life lessons from the discipline and challenge of
music performance. And I grew in trusting God to help me. I may have prayed
more fervent prayers in those practice rooms than any other student. : )
Even majoring in history is a
challenge. Reading is slower when you’re legally blind, and history requires a
ton of reading. Again, there were many tears and lots of fervent prayers, and,
again, I found myself on a gradual increase of trial and error, of faith and
success. History, as it turns out, is not about reading everything anyway,
though I do love just fully reading even a history book. By my last semester, I
took on a heavier load than I ever thought possible before. Again, I was
provided with unexpected history student friends/mentors and helpful professors
and plenty of opportunities to take on more than I thought I could. And I get
to do it all over again this fall.
And there are lots of other
examples of doing what seems unlikely for someone like me. Aside from
traveling, history, and music, I also love art and photography. Some parts of
these hobbies are out of my reach, but I still love what I can do. I mentioned
that I hiked the Grand Canyon. I’ve also hiked Pike’s Peak, and a couple of
other mountains, and I biked down a volcano with my family in Hawaii. Lacking color
vision presents a few challenges to cooking, but I’ve learned to love and
succeed at both cooking and baking. Other college classes presented unique
challenges. The on-the-spot explanations required for music theory and French made
following what was going on in the front of the classroom a matter of reading
ahead and piecing it together by what I heard. I don’t list these things to
brag (I think I’ve provided enough not-so-glorious stories to give that
balance). I hope instead to inspire others like me (or not like me) to not give
up just because something’s hard to overcome.
So here’s what I take away from
all of that. We seem to fall into two opposite errors when it comes to ability
and opportunity. On the one hand, we say, “You can do whatever you want!,”
which is silly and clearly not true. It’s more obvious with me, but it’s also
true of anyone. We are not all the same. Everyone has challenges, faults,
weaknesses. Everyone has strengths and individual passions. Admitting we can’t
do some things and doing the things we can and love to do for more than just
ourselves is the right way to handle them. But we also have begun to believe
the error that the whole world should bend to our individual needs. This is not
reality. I do appreciate what has been done before me to accommodate visually
impaired people. But I don’t expect that one day everything will be perfectly
fitted for my vision, nor would I want it to. Sure, it would be easier, but the
challenge of overcoming has been a gift from God to make me who He wanted me to
be.
Maybe it all sounds trite or
forced to some, but I believe there’s more to life than just my accomplishments
and my weaknesses. I learn to trust God with these small things, because I know
I was meant to trust Him with the more important things: “6 So we are always
confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are
not at home with the Lord. 7 For we live by believing and not by seeing.” (2
Corinthians 5, NLT - whole chapter here)
