Cross Stitching

I sometimes sit here  too long and think about what I should write on this blog. Who's reading it? How personal can I really be? Who really cares about my personal and/or professional life? Maybe I should wait until later when I feel more witty and funnier. Maybe I'll be boring and steer people away, maybe I already have. Maybe I think WAY too much.

I once was told a great story about our perspective on life. Imagine a grandchild sitting on the floor watching his grandma do a cross stitch. From below it looks like this huge mess,  doesn't make any sence and just looks awkward. But from grandma's perspective she has an image she is creating, a pattern she is following to create a really cool picture. This story stuck with me. I love the concept that from "down here" are life looks a little chaotic and messy but God has a picture he's working on and from his perspective it's going just as planned. It makes that age old saying, "look at the bigger picture" make more sense to me, it's more real for me now.

For most of my life, I thought my vision, or lack of, was my biggest curse. I didn't cry over it everyday or feel sorry for myself (all the time anyway) but I certainly thought it was my down fall, that thing in my life that stopped me from FULLY reaching my full potential. I always felt like I was a good kid, a good person, got good grades, did most things well and excelled for having the "issue" I had. I always, always knew that there was more in there, I knew I wasn't just good or mediocre, it was in me I just knew it.

I know now it wasn't my blindness that stopped me it was my lack of training, lack of knowlege about blindness and lack of good skills. That gives me a slight bit of comfort knowing that it wasn't all mental for me, there actually was something(s) missing.  I have come a long way but I still don't feel like I'm living up to my full potential. I actually hope I always feel this way a little, I enjoy learning (even the hard way at times) and I want to wake up everyday feeling like I am not doing my best.

Lately I have been questioning my life a bit. I work with blind kids, blind adults, I write a column on blindness, I go on work and consumer organization trips, I work all day on braille advocasy. I'm basically emerced in the blindness field. I question if I am supposed to be doing this. Maybe I should be the blind person that's out there surrounded by sighted people proving blind people can be an active part of society. I do think about these things. How did I end up here, the girl who would NEVER claim to be blind for the majority of her life is now an active member of the blind community.

I'm passionate about what I do and what I believe, for the first time in my life I believe in something so much that I'm willing to make enemies over it. I never stood up for anything the way I do my job, my blind kids, myself. Where did this come from? When did I stop caring so much that EVERYONE liked me and cared more about standing strong in my beliefs? I feel like I went from one extreme to the next and sometimes don't walk that tight-rope well.

Perhaps it is normal for us to all stop and question things now and then. Perhaps it's normal to stop and think how you got from here to there. Perhaps it's normal to question ourselves every now and then. Perhaps.

Sometimes the view from down here seems a little confusing but it's comforting to know there's a picture in the works. All we can do is hope what we are doing is making an impact, that somehow we are making even the smallest change in the world. That we are waking up everyday wanting to leave a mark or simply cross one stitch.