i am half blind. on my eighteenth birthday, a freak accident left me with a slashed retina, a temporary eye patch and a permanent loss of 86% of vision in my right eye. i don't talk about it much, and apart from the inability to drive a car, placing my notebook next to the desk instead of on it once in a while, and making me truly abysmal at beer pong, it has not impacted my life much.
except for the bittersweet fact that i can never show people how breathtakingly beautiful the world looks when you eyesight is fractured straight through the middle. i close what my opitician calls my good eye and the world explodes in colour, every pinprick source of light spreading out into iridescent flares into all directions culminating in bright circles at the edge of my vision. every star, every streetlight, multiplying into a tenfold symphony of colour and light. it's so overwhelmingly beautiful. how can i ever explain this to people? that when they find out and look at me with pity they should be envious instead. what an immense privilege, to be able to look at the world and see it too.
