Forest for the Trees

"Things are never as bad as they seem
You just gotta learn to see
The forest for the trees...
"Huey Lewis, "Forest from the Trees"
I have the opposite problem from the old, often unclear expression quoted in that song. "Can’t see the forest for the trees" indicates an inability to see the whole for the individual components. In so many ways, physically and psychologically, I can’t see the details for the whole.
I can’t see what is in my vision clearly. My range of vision is also greatly reduced. At home, to walk from the living room and down the length of the house to the bathroom, I can get a sense of the hallway and know the territory, but any cat that walks under my feet gets inadvertently stepped on or kicked. I can’t focus on the end of the hall and the intervening steps. The hallway is clear unless something independently mobile puts itself in my path.
The bowling alley is a similar circumstance. I am familiar with the place. The playing area itself is one of my safest and most stable environments because lighting is consistent and the approach area is clear, all according to the sport’s rules. Navigating through the building from doors to bathrooms and lockers and the lanes I’m playing on is more difficult. I do as well as I do from years worth of familiarity with the place and massive effort. The specific invariable difficulties are inconsistent lighting, especially unshaded fluorescent lights at the front desk and vending machines. Sundays are easier than Thursdays; my locker is directly across from the lanes on which I bowl. Thursdays require navigation of the entire building. If I focus on the final destination, there’s no way to avoid all the people who will step in front of me, thinking I will see them to avoid them. With the differences in lighting, lack of contrasts and bustling people, it’s a slow walk. I need to concentrate on individual details rather than the entire environment.
Psychologically, I need to concentrate on specific trees more than the forest. There’s many things I procrastinated or delayed over the past few years, often with the thought "My vision will be better next week." That was true for a while, but did not hold true over time. I know now that there are things I will never be able to do again. The landscape of my life is littered with ongoing projects big and small that I need to complete, have someone else complete, or I need to give up on with acceptance of the impossibility for me. Becoming handicapped has been a humbling experience that has taught me to re-prioritize. I’m trying to release responsibilities in a responsible manner, make sure batons are passed in workable ways, where other people can pick up right where I left off with minimal disruption to others who are affected by the change.
My more private responsibilities and desires are harder to prioritize. There are things with eventual deadlines that I feel I should have more progress on. My fiction writing gets pushed aside for all the other things that come up. New writing is easy enough, but editing can be difficult, and my loss in acuity for reading web sites is one factor that has pushed submitting work to potential publishers into the nearly impossible category.
Slowly, and with help, I manage most things. Each task done is one less tree in the overgrown forest.