So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Friday, January 15
As a preface, I would like to say that I am sorry for not getting this blog post sooner. I have been having technical difficulties and have been unable to reach a computer for some time. This was a very very very riveting experience and when I took the blindfold off it took some time to really analyze how I felt.

So, today was the faithful day that I take off my blindfold. I’m not quite sure how I feel (And now I think I have figured out how I do) about taking off these bandages after so many days of having them on. I laughed with Ben because I told him that even though I know it has only been five days it feels like a lifetime. It feels like I’ve been under these things for so long and that my life has really revolved around being blind. But then again, I know that it hasn’t.

I know that I am not truly blind. I’m not ignoring that. I know that at anytime during these days I had the comfort of knowing that I could take off the blinding apparatus and be fine. I’m thankful that I could. But please don’t look at this blog and expect to see what its like to be a blind person. I am simply a person who volunteered to go blind for 5 days in hopes of better understanding.

But besides that point I think that this was still the most amazing experience that I have ever had.

I woke up, disorientated as I was from the fire alarm the night before, and did not feel as though I had been doing it all week. Instead, I felt as though that I had woken up for the first time blind, like Tuesday. That was really discomforting. I was hoping by the last day that everything would have felt regular, that I could do these things without any fault.

Instead, I felt like a baby calf; I had to be led everywhere, I didn’t want to leave my caretakers side, and I was afraid of being as disorientated as I was the night before. I stuck to Ben’s side the entire day and didn’t want to leave without someone close. I didn’t want to feel like the night before with the alarm.

I guess that’s another thing that is hard to appreciate. Traumatic situations make us loose our sense of stability or anything of that nature. When you have gone blind recently, such as myself, its hard to operate when you loose even more sense of stability.

So even waking up was hard. I had to open 5 different drawers, out of 6, before I was able to find where my shirts were. I lost all placement as to the things in my room, my living room, and I had to take moving around in the bathroom really slow.

Ben could tell that I was upset, distraught, and horribly upset at the situation. I couldn’t really express it. I wanted to take these bandages off so that I could return to being normal. But I stuck through with it till the end. We grabbed some lunch after I took a shower and headed to the lab to do our tests.

The tests were easy enough to get through though one of our testing materials broke. Oh well. We’ll fix it somehow. Everything there went well and I was very anxious to get back so that I could take off the bandages.

After Ben FINALLY stopped playing his computer game we left for the room and the time to take off the bandages was soon to arrive. I sat on the couch anxious to take them off. Ben finally turned off all of the lights and I started to pick away at the bandages. Instead of keeping my eyes closed the entire time until the bandages were completely off I peeked.

I couldn’t help myself. And trust me, if you couldn’t see for 5 days you would too.

I could see everything in the room. Everything. Maybe not with the best clarity but I could see it even though the lights were off.

And everything was blue. A magnificent blue hue.
It was as if someone had put a blue filter over a camera and shot the room with it. I couldn’t help but stare at my hands. At the movement. A fluid movement that didn’t stop with my imagination. The things in the room ever so still but at the same time comforting because I know that I could move them. I know that I could tell where things are, not give it my best guess. It was like I was in a dream. Except, I didn’t want to wake up. I felt so great.

It felt so great to finally take off those irritating bandages. (Later on, I found out that my skin was so irritated from it that it actually made the skin on my eyes swollen and peel). I wanted to cry but I don’t think that my eyes knew how. They were already so strained and tired even though it had only been a few hours. I thought that the transition from sight into blindness was tiring…

Blindness into sight was exhausting. I wanted to immediately go to sleep but I also wanted to see everything again. To see what I had felt. What I tripped over. Etc. etc. It was more of a trip than the transition in. I’m still not exactly sure how to explain it and I don’t think that I ever will. I’m sure you all can appreciate that. That its incredibly hard to talk about a situation that has changed your life.

This has changed my life.

I walked outside after about an hour of readjusting my eyes to light to see amazing colors. A plethora of colors that ranged from the greenest of grass, the bluest of skies, the most yellow of suns, and the most black of the pavement. I missed all of these colors. And now when I look out my window, stare at my books, look at my paintings, I can appreciate it all so much more. I can really feel the colors.

I see it all now. I see the colors that I didn’t like before or did not think went well with things and love them. I see things in patterns that I have never taken to notice before.

I love every color around me. I love every structure. I love to look and stare and gawk at the birds that fly from one tree to another. I can’t help but sit outside and just look. I love to match the sound sthat I heard before to the things that they come from. I’m sensitive to hear the sound of the pavement that I walk on. I can hear the birds laughing and playing their sweet songs hundreds of feet away. It makes me smile.

Everything is making me smile more and more. You just learn to focus on the goods when you don’t have something such as sight. I now know why Ameer was happy all of the time to talk to or hang out with anyone. I love to smile now.

I know this sounds repetitive, and I agree, it is, but there just really is no way to explain how I feel. I wish that everyone could have experienced this. I wish that everyone could really know how it feels to go blind for a week. I know it seems like an impossible task but I can promise you that it is not. I did it. People who actually go blind don’t even have a return to. They just have their blindness. It is possible to survive.

It is possible to see the world.

It is possible to see beauty.

It has helped me recognize it everyday since. I love the time that I spend with people. I love the hugs that I get. I love just the smiles that they have when I tell a joke. I love their laughter. I love the sight of happiness. I love my life.

Appreciation. That’s the word that I want to use for this. I got appreciation from this. For not only my life, but for handicapped people as well. I want to continue to have these experiences long after this experiment has passed. I cannot wait to go deaf next week. It should be an exciting experiment. An exciting lifestyle change.

This has been a great experience and I hope that if you ever speak/email me that I can help you understand this more. Thank you all very much for a week so far and please, don’t stop reading. This experiment is no where near over.