no little thoughts

Blindness is a spectrum! I have what is called tunnel vision, which is basically nature's version of horse blinders (yippee), aka I have 20/20 vision for what I *can* see, I just don't have peripheral vision. This basically means I trip over cracks in the road, toddlers, wet floor signs, anything below hip height. It also makes it extremely difficult to spot cars, bikes, or other people while walking, so I use a red and white cane 🦯 to let other people know I have some pretty serious eye issues so they don't run me over.

If you wanna get technical, I'm "low vision", but I don't use that label for several reasons:

1. Most people don't know what that means, and when you're in a rush where vision is only somewhat relevant ("where is the station?") it wastes time you don't have trying to explain a new concept. Plus, people love asking followup questions. *Lots* of em.

2. I identify closer with the label "blind". So much of my life has become defined by what I *can't* see. Most of my physical injuries in the past year have been from objects I couldn't spot and my cane didn't catch. I know one of these days my luck will run out and I will get hit by someone on a bike not paying attention... If it happens to fully sighted people, it'll happen to me too. I genuinely can't see shit in the dark, thanks to night blindness. Same with bright light- painful squinting or closing my eyes altogether. Basically, there's a hell of a lot more my vision can't do than can, so I prefer calling myself blind.

A lot of people don't know blindness is a spectrum, so when they hear me self identify that way they often think it's either an exaggeration or that I'm faking it because their idea of blind is "someone who cannot see anything at all". The reality of blindness is it ranges anywhere from spotty vision to light perception to blurriness so bad glasses can't fix it. Of course, I can't speak on other people's experiences with blindness. I'm only talking about my own and what I've learned from the doctors who treated me when I first got my diagnosis. If you're interested, I'd highly recommend doing your own research as well including accounts from people with various eye issues, so that you can better understand the ways different things fall under the blindness spectrum.

Zacco The Platypus!!???!??!?