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About half-blind.com
Living life half-blind
Welcome to half-blind.com, a place where inspiration is gold. Looking and talking with me, you would never guess that I am legally blind. I lost the sight in my right eye in 2000 to an extremely rare genetic disease that few people have ever heard of. Then in 2018, I lost the the sight in my left eye to a rare vascular disease. What are the chances that I could have two wildly different diseases of the eye that both result in optic atrophy? After months of testing and sending me for second, their, and fourth opinions, the doctors discovered that... I'm going to hold the rest of that story to share later.
After going through a massive lifestyle change, I learned to embrace my new reality. Actually, that's not entirely true. I definitely leaned into the challenges that living a life as a blind person brings, but it wasn't easy to give up my independence. But with the help and unwavering support of my husband and two sons, as well as the patience and kindness of close friends, I found a way to dive into my passions of horticulture, cooking & baking, and refinishing furniture. I learned a lot along the way. I left my dream job working in the Deaf community and found my way back to my my roots as a clinical counselor. I have always love the narratives of other people. That is, in part, why I became a counselor. I believe that there is real power in our narratives. The power to understand, to imagine, and to connect across vast distances and ideological differences all come from the power of sharing of our narratives.
So, why half-blind.com? Aside from the obvious, I think the truth of humanity's resilience is found in our ability to face life half-blind. Some of us are fastidious planners and know with a good deal of certainty what lies ahead for them. Others float along without much in the way of intention, hoping to find meaning to the events of their past. In the end, none of us are promised a tomorrow. At some point in our lives, we all stumble around in the darkness of not-knowing, half-blind and half-inspired.
Decades ago, shortly after the birth of our youngest son, I decided to take the first steps toward attaining one of my life goals by getting a PhD. As I saw across from three faculty in a Pastoral Counseling PhD program, I was asked my thoughts on diversity. I had not actively rehearsed this answer in my mind, but I had spent enough time thinking about it that answering their question gave me no pause. I said, "I believe that ideology is the last frontier of diversity. We can accept people who don't look like us, dress like us, wear different clothes and eat different foods than us. But we have not yet found a way to accept a person who doesn't think like us. Respecting diversity of ideology is humanity's greatest challenge." I still believe this. Life is easier when we live in our little echo chambers, resonating with the hum of our mutual core values. But core values are like veins of precious stones and minerals that do not follow the geographic boundaries we draw on maps. Core values can and often do vary person-to-person, even within families rich with love.
I didn't finish that PhD in Pastoral Counseling. I felt a different calling. A few years later I found a PhD program in Transformative Studies that spoke to my soul. About two years into my doctoral studies I happened to meet a young woman at the Smithsonian store in the Washington National Airport, who like me, was killing time being fascinated by geodes of amethyst and gorgeous crystals. We struck up a conversation and I learned that she and her mother were from Salt Lake City. We shared interesting facts about our lives the way that extroverts often do. I shared that I was working on my doctorate in Transformative Studies and she shared some of the experiences she and her mother had had while in DC. As we were still enjoying our dialogue, the woman's mother approached us with a warm smile. Her daughter introduced us and then, to her mother, she said, "Mom, he's working on his PhD in Transformative Studies!" Her mother responded, "Transformative Studies. I've never heard of that program before, what is it?" I stumbled through a poorly rehearsed explanation about a doctoral program that was about personal, societal, and cosmological transformation. The mother, looking impressed with my description, threw a question at me with the precision of, well, a counselor. She asked, "So, what is the main thing that you have learned in this PhD program in Transformative Studies?" Without thinking, I twisted my palm around forming the sign for "between the two of us" in American Sign Language and said, This, the sharing of our narratives, changes the world." When we can see a human face in the personal narratives of "the other," we can connect with them in ways that are truly transformative. This is a foundational truth to me.
This site is to be a place where individuals can tell their truths without fear of judgment or condemnation, providing all who read, listen, or watch their stories unfold a sacred window into the lives of narrator.
This site will differ from other avenues of social media in which shock value and amygdaloid truth slapping wins icons of support and revilement. The currency of this site is curiosity. So, bring your stories to this space. Of the narrator I only ask that your story be yours to tell, 100% truthful, and that it hurts no person, group, or cause in the telling.
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Creative Interests
i created My Half-Blind Life to give life to my creative interests. My mission is to empower viewers with knowledge and information in engaging and compelling ways. I'm not sure where this journey will lead me, but I'm strapped in and ready to press "Go!"
My Team
My team consists of experts in various fields, including writers, editors, videographers, and animators. We work together to create engaging and informative videos that are optimized for search engines and designed to reach the widest possible audience.