2,555 days in the grey

This weekend marked seven years since I lost my sight. 84 months, 364 weeks, 2,555 days. What happened was an operation to remove a tumour was beset with complications that destroyed my optic nerves and very nearly killed me. I survived but was left legally blind, with no sight from my right eye and only 3 percent from my left, meaning that I see in indistinct shades of grey.

I was in hospital for 6 months and those early days were horrific – disorienting for me and traumatic for my family. Since then, I have occupied those years, months and days recuperating, recovering, re-training and re-considering what my life will look like moving forward.

It occurred to me on the weekend that, somewhere along the way, I learned how to just be a person living my life, seeing what I see and feeling what I feel.

I remember years ago talking to someone who had immigrated to Australia from Japan. At the time, I was studying Japanese and asked her whether she still thought in Japanese and then recalled the English translation, or had begun “thinking” in English. She said that she had translated for years but, at some point, it clicked and the English language came to her without a conscious translation taking place in her head. She had begun thinking more like a native speaker of the English language, and her mental load had eased.

It occurred to me over the weekend that I have finally begun thinking like a native of the world I can see. Early on, I would use what I could see to perform an elaborate move of mental gymnastics to dredge up a memory of what the thing in front of me must be. It was exhausting.

What a difference seven years can make. But just because you can’t do it the same, doesn’t mean you can’t do it!

Whether it is the slow unfolding of acceptance or the recognition that nothing is the same as I remember it – not my own face in the mirror, not my daughters who have grown from 8 and 10 to 15 and 17, not the city I live in or the packaging of the products I use every day – I have begun feeling like I’m just a person again. No complicated mental manoeuvres needed to translate the world to myself, just an attitude of ease and gratitude.

Gratitude because it was a beautiful weekend here in Brisbane. The sky was blue and the red roofs of my neighbour’s houses set off the vibrant green of the trees and the grass. Would I have seen a more intense version of those colours if my optic nerves hadn’t been so badly damaged seven years ago? Probably but it does not serve me to cling to comparing, translating, longing for an experience of the world that was never mine to have.

I am happier and more comfortable in the world than I thought I would ever be again.

So, what is holding you back from saying the same? Is there some version of your life that you are clinging to? Are you talking to yourself about the life you’re living now using unhelpful language from your past?

Stop. What’s done is done and all you can do now is take in the world around you and decide what to set your sights on now.

It’s not easy, but change changes you too. Just because you can’t do it the same doesn’t mean you can’t do it.