The Way I  See It

Alex Loch

             In our eyes we have rod cells and cone cells―rod cells allow us night vision and black-and-white vision, and cone cells give us day vision and colored vision; I was born without cone cells.  Rod monochromatism is a fancy way of saying I can’t see color, I can’t see distance, and I can’t see anything when I go outside―as if a flashlight is constantly being shined in my eyes.

                Most people don’t understand the way I see things―this includes my cousins.  They tell people that I’m color-blind, but that’s not quite it.  Color-blind people mix up colors―I can’t see colors.  As much as I can, I explain to people how I see things.  It’s hard to compare it to normal vision, because I have never experienced normal vision.  “What color is this?” people ask and point to their shirts.  I’ll guess a color, but I’m still only guessing.  I know that green is a lighter shade than black and things like that, but blue, green, pink, orange―and a few other colors―can look exactly the same to me.

When I tell people about my sight, they react with something like “Oh, you can’t see color!  I can’t imagine a world without color.”  Well I can and, having never had the ability to see color, it’s not so bad.  I don’t miss color, I don’t long to see the sunset with its lovely oranges and oh-so-vibrant pinks, and I don’t cry myself to sleep cursing God for robbing me of a part of life I just can’t live without.  I hardly think about it―no, color vision is the least of my worries; distance and light, those are the real problems.

                Because I constantly use my night vision, I squint.  It would be like someone flipping a light switch on in a dark room―you want to look away, but it’s no use because the light is everywhere, so you crack your eyelids just a little and allow them to open more and more as your eyes adjust.  But my eyes never adjust.  “Forget your glasses at home?” I get asked on a weekly basis.  I am never quite sure how to respond.  Sometimes I give a simple “Yes,” just to end the conversation, or I might throw out an “I’m light sensitive,” and watch the person nod as if they know what that means.  Occasionally a person will rudely comment on my vision; “You need glasses,” they’ll say as they pass me.  I typically follow up with a “No.  I’m legally blind and glasses won’t help.”  That usually shuts them up nicely.

                I remember one incident in high school when I forgot my backpack in the band room.  It was a Friday night and the football game had just ended, so I hurried into the fluorescently lit school and found a custodian to unlock the room.  The guy maneuvered the key, opened the door, turned to me and stared, “You been smokin’ dope?” he asked a fourteen-year-old me.  The answer was no, but that wasn’t the first or last time I was asked that question.

                The distance thing, well I would say that is the biggest issue.  My right eye is measured at 20/200 acuity while my left is measured at 20/300―basically, what the average person sees at twenty to thirty feet, I must be two or three feet away to see the same detail, minus the color.  What does this mean?  Well, it means not being able to see what is written on the board at the front of a classroom, it means being unable to recognize a friend until they’re an arm’s length away, it means having to be a few inches away from a book to read it, it means eating alone in the cafeteria because I can’t see where my friends are sitting, it means never driving, it means being scared to cross streets.  It means more than people think it means.  “Just get glasses,” people say, but that won’t help.  Glasses bend light coming into the eyes so it hits the focal point in the back of the retina―but my focal point isn’t the problem.  The problem is that rod cells don’t accommodate for seeing distance so, unless I strap a pair of stylish binoculars onto my face, there’s no real solution.

                  My eye condition is something the general public doesn’t know about me.  I cope well, so most people don’t think there’s more to it than a couple of half-closed eyelids.  It’s strange and intriguing to people at first, but after a while it becomes forgettable because I don’t make it obvious―I don’t have it printed on a t-shirt and I don’t run into things more than the average person.  My friends forget about my vision regularly, asking me to “Look at that guy in the red shirt.” 

“What’s red?” I joke―not to mention the guy is standing over forty feet away.

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