Happy Hour

I perched on a bench outside the Emeryville BART station and waited, nervously eying peg-legged pigeons that tried to approach me.

Oh, my bad, you might need some sort of back-story.

My friend Sarah and I had been trying to connect for months. She was out of town, then I was too tied up with work, then she was out of town. Finally, here we were, Labor Day Weekend, shopping trip planned out. Although Emeryville is a bit sketch, hugging the outskirts of even sketchier Oakland, it does have an IKEA. And we all know how much girls love IKEA. So the plan was for Sarah to take a quick BART ride over from Berkeley, and I was to pluck myself out of God-forsaken suburbia to venture out into the world. Have I mentioned before that I currently live in a little town called Dublin? Yeah, St. Patty's Day is big here. Have I also mentioned that Sarah has RP?

I wonder if I've educated you lot on retinitis pigmentosa well enough. Sometimes I think that I make it sound like it's God's special little disease created just for me. Because I'm oh-so-special. And cute.

Really, an estimated 100,000 people in the United States are also cute and special. The rumors are true: there are more of me out there. And my dear friend Sarah happens to be among them.

Back to my riveting tale.

There I was, grimly surveying Emeryville, waiting for my blind companion. A large woman of questionable ethnicity rounded on me out of nowhere, complaining of waiting for her boyfriend for a whopping twenty minutes, and asked if she could use my phone to call him. You might remember me mentioning in my last post that I have recently procured the newest iPhone. What you probably don't remember is my confessed love affair with said phone. Cringing, I handed the woman my love after looking her up and down and immediately concluding I could take her if she ran off with it. The woman plopped herself next to me and proceeded to complain that she shouldn't have to put up with this shit. That she was in her prime, and could find another man. I found myself examining her overly long toenails peeking over the dirty Old Navy flip flops and agreed with her.

Finally the late boyfriend arrived, the large woman left, I had my phone stowed safely back in my purse, and then suddenly overheard someone say that the shuttle to the shopping center wasn't running that day. Something about it being Labor Day. Duh. I called Sarah, and she told me to get on the next train that arrived. Plan B: San Francisco. Perfect.

When her train arrived, I climbed on, cursing my bad vision and frantically searching for her. No blind girl. We proceeded to text one another for the next fifteen minutes as our train churned speedily towards the city, laughing that we couldn't find one another. We arrived at the station, and finally spotted each other ten feet away. Lovely Sarah. How I was glad to see her.

The next few hours were filled with girlish giggles and credit card swipes. We compared bruises (mine were bigger). More than once we lost sight of each other, but we took it in stride. You have to.

After deciding to conclude our evening with a few beers, we sat down in a well-lit bar and talked business. Our eyes. Sarah is several more years progressed than I am, and as we made circular gestures to indicate how much of our peripheral we still desperately cling to, I hid my shock as she showed me how much less she can see than I.

For one unforgiving moment, I stared my future in the face.

I almost panicked. Then once again, inevitably, the grace of One who understands filled the cracks and I found myself yearning to cling to Him. To trust Him. I don't understand. But I know that I have years of vision left ahead of me, and really all I care about is being able to see His face clearly for all of eternity. And that He has promised to me.

Once again, dear readers, I have so many of you to thank. Your never-ending support and prayers are appreciated more than you will ever know. I was informed a few weeks ago that my blog was voted to be among the Top 25 Low Vision blogs on the Internet. I am humbled and honored. Thank you so much for allowing me a platform in which to reach the low vision community!

I don't think I've ever done this before, but I'd like to share a link for the Foundation Fighting Blindness (click here) with you. The research that this organization is putting towards eradicating diseases like mine is truly remarkable. Please take a second to browse around, maybe educate yourself a bit on retinitis pigmentosa, and if you feel so inclined, throw a few nickels at them. Again, it is beyond appreciated.

I'd like to wrap this up with a moral, as all good stories should come with a moral. First, please go out and see something today. I mean really look at it. Cherish the way rocks fall together to create patterns. Notice clouds. Blink. Look through your retinas and corneas, and marvel at the ingenious invention that eyesight truly is.

Secondly, try to never get stuck in Emeryville.