Are You Blind?

​Are You Blind?

The question “Are you blind?” has been asked in the most inappropriate way almost every time I’ve ever heard it.  Not because the words themselves are vulgar, but because of who is asking, when they’re asking, and what they are really trying to confirm.

Context matters.

If your parent asks that question, it does not mean the same thing as when a stranger does.

If your husband or wife asks, it carries intimacy, fear, care, and shared history.

If a clinician asks, it is diagnostic.

If a child asks, it is curiosity still learning language. But when it’s asked casually, publicly, or without consent, it becomes something else entirely.

It’s not really a question.

It’s a probe.

What people are often asking is not Are you blind?

What they are asking is:

Is something wrong with you?

Should I treat you differently now?

How much access do I have to your body and your story?

That unspoken meaning lingers.

And now, living with vision loss, it lingers even more loudly.

I know this language.

I taught this language.

I spent years studying, teaching, and training others on bias and microaggressions - how intent does not cancel impact, how marginalized bodies are often asked to explain themselves for the comfort of others.

And now… look at me.

Standing inside the lesson.

But that question is only the spark.

It is not the center.

What followed has been far more disorienting, and far more sacred.

I am starting my life over.

Not in a dramatic, cinematic way.

In the quiet, unsettling way where nothing is fully mapped and everything feels newly negotiable. The life I once navigated by sight, by speed, by certainty, no longer exists in the same form. And the life ahead of me has not yet introduced itself.

I don’t have tidy language for that.

What I do have is awareness. And choice. The options before me are many. Too many, some days. Each one requiring trust without full visibility - literal or otherwise.

This is what no one tells you about starting over:

It’s not just about loss.

It’s about undetermined possibility. I am fasting and praying - not for quick answers, but for alignment.

For guidance that doesn’t shout.

For vision that isn’t dependent on sight.

So I am writing again.

Not plans.

Not timelines.

But vision.

The Bible says “And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.” 

“For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.”

‭‭Habakkuk‬ ‭2‬:‭2-3‬ ‭KJV‬‬

I’m writing the  kind of vision  that asks God to lead instead of confirm. The kind that trusts obedience more than clarity. Starting over has a way of stripping you of performance. There is no room for ego when you are relearning how to walk. No shortcut when you are learning how to eat without spilling, missing, or second-guessing your own hands.

These are not metaphors for me.

They are daily practice. I am being taught again - by therapists, by repetition, by my own body - how to move safely through space. How to slow down enough to stay upright. How to trust steps that used to be automatic.

Eating has become an exercise in patience and humility.

In awareness.

In accepting help without apologizing for needing it.

This kind of relearning does something to you.

It returns you to a version of yourself that does not rely on mastery.

It reminds you how early we learn to measure worth by independence.

And how quickly we forget that dependence is not failure… it is human.

I am corrected often.

Redirected gently.

Asked to try again.

And each time, something in me softens.

Because being the student again,

the child again, requires a surrender no credential prepares you for.

There is grief here.

There is frustration.

There is quiet embarrassment I don’t always name out loud.

But there is also grace.

Grace in being held.

Grace in being guided.

Grace in discovering that dignity does not disappear when you need help. It deepens.

Starting over has also clarified something else:

I am no longer bothered by the people I cannot bring with me. Not out of bitterness. But out of necessity. This season has narrowed my focus in merciful ways. When your energy is spent relearning how to move, how to eat, how to live, you stop carrying what was never yours to hold.

Some people belong to the version of me that moved faster.

Saw more.

Explained herself.

I bless them… and I keep going.

At the same time, I am deeply troubled by what I see happening in the world. By the ease with which people justify cruelty. By how quickly humanity is stripped from those deemed inconvenient, different, or disposable.

It is heartbreaking.

And yet, there is a strange grace in not seeing everything.

I am grateful that there is much I cannot witness now. That my nervous system is spared the constant visual assault. That my attention is being drawn inward instead of outward.

This is not denial.

It is preservation.

Another phrase has followed me quietly through this season - one that lands differently now than it did at the beginning.

Legally blind.

It was introduced early, during diagnosis, when everything still felt theoretical. Back when language arrived before reality had fully settled in my body.

At first, it felt like information.

A category.

A term meant for systems - not souls.

But now, as I move from diagnosis into the work of getting my life back, it carries weight.

Because legally blind is a label designed for paperwork.

For eligibility.

For forms and policies.

It was never designed to hold grief.

Or adaptation.

Or becoming.

Hearing it now feels final in a way I am still negotiating, not because I am in denial, but because I am in motion.

I am not frozen in diagnosis.

I am rebuilding.

I respect what the term is meant to do.

But I refuse to let it define who I am.

This season is not about what has been declared.

It is about what is still unfolding.

And in the middle of all of this - 

the learning, the fasting, the praying, the starting over - I wrote a book!!!

And then I published it!!!

Boom. Just like that!

I don’t write because everything was clear, because clarity is not a prerequisite for obedience.

Writing has become a way to stay alive in my own story.

To mark time.

To tell the truth while it was still tender.

👉🏾 You can preorder my book here:

Preorder Diary of an Angry, Black, and Blind Girl

This book is not the end… it is the beginning. Volumes One! 😉

The publishing company behind it, GOD IS IT, exists to open doors for more writers. For people carrying history in their bodies. For those with stories they were never told would matter. For those who understand that writing is not just expression - it is preservation.

I believe we are living through a moment that will one day be studied.

And I believe ordinary people are writing extraordinary history right now.

If you have a story, a journal, a reflection, a truth you are carrying, reach out. Whether you are a seasoned writer or just beginning, your voice deserves space, and it would be a pleasure to work with you and share your insights with the world!

This is the beginning of a larger writing history - one that tells the truth of now, so someone later can understand how we survived it.

I am still learning how to walk.

Still learning how to eat.

Still learning how to live in this body.

But I am also building.

Publishing.

Making room.

Late or not….

Everything has been written right on time.

And the story is still unfolding. 🫶🏾