I Wish You’d Told Me

Throughout our lives we are constantly asking who am I what am I about what do I stand for what do I believe. Every five or ten years we look at who and what we are and re answer our questions. We have an opportunity to change our life and figure out who we are and what we are about.
I am so pissed that you didn’t tell me about how differently the world is with a disability with blindness with ocular albinism. It sounds so simple. I don’t see the world like you so I don’t see the world like you do. I don’t perceive the world or sense the same inputs I don’t have access to the same information. No wonder you think I’m bizarre or weird or different. I am.
Yes we all are individuals and see the world differently. We all have unique experiences that form us and make us who we are. There is to be harsh a statistical average a statistical cluster called “normal”. Your distance from that statistical cluster affects how differently people see you or how much work you as an individual need to do to bridge the distance to the herd.
Its not bad enough that I have to find ways to adapt to make the world work for me with my disability. You didn’t have the courage to share your story to tell me that I’d also have to find ways to adapt my perceptions to the perceptions held by the world. You didn’t tell me that I would be different and that I’d have to work to over come it physically and socially emotionally intellectually spiritually To live to love to parent to work to contribute to give.
I am so pissed that you didn’t help me. I worked so hard to be “normal” to be like everyone else. Then the inevitable happened. I turned sixteen and wasn’t able to drive and no longer could I admit that I wasn’t different. Then I became old enough that I couldn’t pretend or accommodate “normal” people anymore and I had to be me because I was too tired to be something else.
Because you didn’t tell me I have had to struggle and be something I’m not. I had to expend energy on relearning that I am different and accepting that I am different. Because of you I have expended all this energy and effort for nothing.
I refuse to be like you. I am going to share if you like it or not. If you approve or not I am going to tell my story and our families story.