Everything & Anything

Blindness

Hiiiii I'm back.
I haven't been on here since forever ago oh my gosh. (More like beginning of April when I was writing something but I guess never posted lol I didn't finish it anyways)

I'm here to talk about being blind.
No, I'm not blind.
I mean, I wear glasses and I joke that I'm blind (and deaf) all the time but I'm not actually blind (or deaf), thankfully.

There's this YouTuber I found recently named Molly Burke and she's blind. I've been watching her videos and her collabs with other YouTubers and it's really got me thinking.

I feel like we (sighted people) take being able to see for granted and don't appreciate it as much as we should.

I seriously can't imagine being blind. That's SO scary to me. All of a sudden waking up one day and not being able to see. Molly Burke, that YouTuber I mentioned, can see shadows and lights but not anything else. She can't see things we see daily. She can't even remember how her face looks like, neither can she remember how anyone in her family (or anyone in general) looks like. I can't imagine not being able to know how I look like or how everyone around me looks like. I mean, I guess that's a perk if you're dating someone blind, they can't really judge you based on appearance but only your personality.

It would be so scary to be walking around without being able to see. I can barely handle being blindfolded and walking around, imagine if that was permanent! I'd bump into everything and probably end up in the hospital my first day. I'm already a clumsy person and I can see where I'm going, so me NOT being able to see where I'm going would be bad, very bad.

One thing that I saw in one of the videos from this YouTuber is that she couldn't read this other YouTuber's 2nd book because he didn't have it audio recorded, which is so sad. We're so lucky to be able to pick up a book and read it. Blind people have to rely on audio recordings or other people to read it for them. And if a book they want to read doesn't have an audio recording and they can't find someone to read the book to them (at a specific time or whatever), they can't read the book.

Another thing that blind people can't do is drive. I didn't realize this until like a month ago. (I thought they could somehow still drive, but that makes no sense because THEY CAN'T SEE! I'm so smart 🤦🏻‍♀️) They have to rely on others and public transportation to get around. They can't just go drive over to Walmart or 7-11 to get a few things, nope. That really sucks. I know if I were blind, I would feel like a burden to other people because you always have to rely on them and I would never want to seem annoying.

Woah I just thought about this, IMAGINE HOW SCARY CROSSING STREETS IS FOR BLIND PEOPLE. How do you know when you can go cross? Probably by listening to the cars or if the crossing thingy makes a noise (but not all do). How do you know how much time you have left? What if you hit someone with your cane on accident? I would feel terrible if I did that omg.

I just thought about another thing... CAN THEY RUN? I mean yeah physically they can but they don't know where they're going and if they're gonna run into people or trip over something, sooooo... technically, they can't run?

Can a blind person ever be a nurse, a dentist, etc. if they ever wanted to be? I would think they can't but at the same time...idk, can they? I know they can be teachers, which is cool. I think it'd be a fun experience having a blind teacher, you'd learn so much.

I can't imagine not being able to see trees, grass, dogs, cats, houses, cars, etc. At least they can still taste how delicious some food is :)

How do blind people dream????? Do they just use their other senses? Do they not see people and only hear their voices and feel their personalities? (I have so many questions, as you can probably tell)

I can say a lot more about this subject but I've already made this long enough. I should probably google search all of my questions but I'm too lazy to, at least right now.
Anyways, the point that I've been trying to make her is that life would be super different if you were blind. You'd have to learn how to do so many things differently.
They deserve a lot more credit than they get because damn, I know I wouldn't be able to live my life like that. They're very strong and inspirational people!