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.

It has been about nine months since I have transitioned to having a Guide Dog in my life. Though this means that I am usually with my furry companion when I am out and about, there are still times when I need to use my white cane, or times when I use it to ensure that I keep up my skills.

Why is braille literacy so important? Does Braille even matter today, in a world where everything is read aloud? What the heck even is it?

What is able-ist? Has my “plain vanilla” blindness enabled me to devalue people with “Neapolitan” blindness or blind people with additional needs? I’m not sure where to begin unravelling this important and heavy topic, but let’s take it all the way back to "Source of All Knowledge", Google.

As someone who has grown up with a disability and who spends a lot of time discussing both the positive and challenging aspects of living as someone blind from birth to my friends, I often dream of what it would be like to have a friend who just gets it. “But why,” you may ask. “Don’t you have sighted friends who treat you normally?” Well, the answer is a complicated one. Yes and no.

A couple of years ago I joined a Leadership working group made up of a diverse group of individuals who wanted to learn how to be more inclusive and practice celebrating diversity. At the first on-line group meeting, there were 8 of us from different locations in Canada, and even one person calling from England. There were a couple of grandparents, one male, one person who uses a wheelchair, somebody who disclosed they deal with severe anxiety, and myself - a person who is blind.

The use of certain language is a complicated issue, not just in the blind community but the disability community in general. Do we use person first or disability first language? Should we not use certain words in order to prevent drawing attention to the disability? Are there any words we shouldn’t say at all? To put it simply, it’s a nuanced issue with no straightforward answer.

It's the first week of Blindness Awareness Month and we are kicking off our month's worth of content with a version of a conversation that could very well be happening somewhere right now as you read this.

On the bus last week I met a woman with the same eye condition as me. Her diagnosis was fairly new, and had come much later in her life. Mine has been with me since birth. “I wouldn’t wish this condition on my worst enemy” she proclaimed. I didn’t know what to say to that. I could think of a lot of things that were far worse that I could wish on my enemies. Poverty, starvation, loneliness, homelessness, terminal illness, etc. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this statement, and it continues to surprise me.

Throughout my childhood my family sat down to dinner together every night. One particular dinner stands out in my memory as the day my life changed. “You have an eye disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa” my mom said.