My acceptance to using a mobility cane and fully embracing my blindness did not happen until my 40th birthday. In a few months from that magical date, I was going to travel to Des Moines, Iowa and I had a lot of anxiety around traveling independently and safely in a new city, navigating the airport, and using public transportation.

I had an interesting conversation with my aunt the other day. She noticed how many people with disabilities often make jokes about their disabilities to themselves or their friends. She didn’t understand why they would do that, since she interpreted them as being mean to themselves, and asked if that was something that I did often in regards to my blindness.

Growing up partially sighted, the word "blind" was never a part of my vocabulary, mostly because many people who met me didn’t consider me to be blind. To them (and myself), blindness meant having no vision whatsoever. I grew up with the idea that blindness was an all or nothing concept, and although I only have roughly half of my visual field, I still had remaining vision and ergo wasn’t considered as being a blind person.