ONE BLIND DAY

Occasionally in life there comes along one day in which things happen or things people have said gang up in your brain and pour down the rain. This is that day for me. Even though I try to make my blog optimistic and have answers for most of the problems that can surround a blind individual, at times the brain just is not willing to “see” that optimism.

This day started out with my canceling a cab ride because I realized they had sent a vehicle that could not get close enough to the door to pick me up. “Surely there are other doors,” you say, and you’d be right. However, a sighted person would not be willing one bit to walk the distance in this large building to the next available exit.

Then I sent an email to a city manager of a city that has no transportation available unless you drive a car. This has been an on-going rub in my life as my mom lives in that town and for years my family and friends have driven the one hundred miles so I could see her occasionally. She’s just about ninety-seven now and I’m just about seventy-four, one day away anyway for me. Though I can never express enough appreciation for those who have driven me those hundred miles, who have never complained, and even acted like they enjoyed it, there’s this yearning in my heart to be independent enough to at least be able to touch down in my own childhood hometown. I can’t afford a private plane, so here I sit while Mom moves into a care facility, and I’m helpless to be able to reach her. When I was a child my parents drove a hundred miles to the NC State School for the Blind, where they dropped me off, knowing that they were not permitted to reach me very often as well. So the tables have turned and perhaps I know just a little bit of what my parents must have felt in those days.

So, Monday morning, let’s clean. Let’s start with the ceiling fan someone told me was dirty. Do I like to be told when I need to clean things? Sort of, but I’m only five feet tall and when I climbed on the stepping stool ladder (which I shouldn’t be climbing on in the first place) I found I couldn’t reach the fan even from the top. Next time I’ll ask that person who was tall enough to see the dirt to do it.

Another someone told me there were spider webs around my chandelier, and suggested I ask someone to knock them down for me. I asked three different people who said they definitely would be willing to do that … when they had a chance … six months ago.

The right thing for me to do with this is let it go, and I am sure there’s a lesson here I’m supposed to learn about that. However, I’m going to climb back on that stool, dust mop and cleaning cloth in hand, and fight with those spiders.

As I sit here staring at the other projects I have begun, I must wonder … is there not some better way to hang a shower curtain after you’ve washed it other than those little stupid rings? Maybe they’ve changed in the last several years and I just don’t know?

So this is just one of those days when, instead of shrugging things off and remembering how truly blessed I am, I eat almost a quart of butter pecan ice-cream. Now do I feel better? Yes, as a matter of fact I do. No matter the problems, I live in the land of milk and honey … and butter pecan ice-cream.