Turning a Blind Eye

Maybe one day, it'll happen to you,
you know lighting strikes without warning!
Who'll see you struggle and who'll hear you cry,
when everybody there just turns a blind eye?
"Blind Eye," Graham Goble as part of Little River Band
Occasionally, I find or seize advantage in my disability.
Don’t get me wrong. No temporary or fleeting convenience can ever compensate for all I’ve lost. I miss driving. I miss reading. I miss being able to watch a movie. I miss being able to observe people. I miss the clear and colorful world and all its little details that I cannot capture on my own. I miss working in my yard and plowing snow. I miss my independence and self sufficiency, things I worked so hard to develop.
I miss taking the trash out. I still do that when my roommate is not around sometimes, during daylight hours when I can see well enough to het down those thirty-four stairs to the barrels. If he is around, my roommate yells at me for doing it. He’s wrong to do that, but the fact that I have fallen down the stairs carry it out puts shades of gray into that statement. I miss being able to do things and being left alone to do them. Now, many people offer help that while appreciated, would be taken better if it was actually offered rather than forced. The situation of increasingly lost self sufficiency has hit me hardest. I can’t do much, and I used to do so much. I still wake some morning, and before opening my eyes, start telling myself I should do this or that item on long neglected lists. When I finally do open my eyes, I remember why that list of things I :should: do got so long. Despite sporadically failing health over the past year, my father helped me or more accurately did for me a number of things I could not do and some others could not do right.
I have not reverted to seeking every easy way, something I was firmly warned against at the age of 17. Now things are just too hard to get too wrong on my own. I realized last fall that I would have to leave my house. This month’s experiences of the blizzard and the loss of my father have only emphasized that.
When it comes to coping mechanisms, I do actively exploit the advantages of being blind. I got out and tried some shoveling, only to learn I really can’t do it. That’s a hard realization to accept. I can block it out even easier now because I can barely see the contrast between snow covered areas and the street’s bare asphalt. Just looking out the window isn’t enough for me to see; if I avoid a prolonged gaze that gives time for adjustment to changes in light, I can block out that stress rather easily. Out of sight, out of mind.
I stated that I dealt with my father’s death perhaps too well. My poor vision helped that. I could not see him in the casket. I could hear my mother’s reactions, but my disability spared me the sights. This worked with my cold core to keep me unemotional throughout the experience.
I cultivated that disability on that sad day. Even adjustment from eyes closed to eyes open needs time. So I kept closing my eyes and then reopening them to keep the adjustment from happening, to keep a blind eye to things too hurtful to see.