Imagine sitting in a room full of people with all of the lights on but not seeing anything at all.  Darkness.  Total darkness.  Having to rely solely on touch and sound.  Never being able to see a phone, a friend’s face or any color at all, just darkness, forever.
   Every day, when I walk into school, I see students and teachers everywhere talking about their nights, homework that’s due or what they plan on doing after school.  I also see the bright lights shining on all the latest trends and styles.  However, on December 14th, I saw none of these things.  The only things I experienced were the constant chatter and feeling of my clothes on my body.
   Vision plays an extremely important role in the lives of many.  Everyone with the capability to see uses their eyes for the majority of the day, which is why when my vision was taken away from me for a day, my eyes were truly opened to a world without sight.  For 24 hours, I wore a blindfold over my eyes.  I lived a whole day, going to all of my classes, walking up and down stairs, eating and even attending a basketball game, without my sight.
   The school day was definitely challenging because my hands and ears were my only gateway to the world.  I noticed things that I normally did not, such as the texture of an apple, the hum of a heater and the feel of walls and lockers.  Due to my lack of vision, I began to “sense” people; I noticed when they were there or when they left, without them even speaking. 
   Navigating around was one of the only things that was fairly easy to do.  This is because I have been walking in the same hallways for roughly four years now.  In addition to this, I had been in all of my classrooms for most of the semester and I knew the setup of the rooms.  But if my teachers had moved the desks around, I would have been at a loss.  For instance, when I walked into classes and left classes, I would count the number of rows until I reached the one I knew my seat was located in.  However, as I was leaving one of my classes, one of my friends added an extra desk; needless to say, I ran into it and everyone, including myself, laughed.
   A major dilemma I faced was focusing.  For instance, when sight was necessary to view a teacher’s new lesson, it was hard to follow along and understand.  And the fact that all I saw was black did not help my case.  Another instance was when it’s loud and someone is talking to you.  With sight, it is easy to focus on a person’s voice, however, without sight, you hear all of the sounds and noises going on around and it’s more challenging to focus on one voice.
   Another dilemma I faced was being left out of a lot of things.  Numerous times someone would exclaim, “look at this!” and I would not be able to join everyone to look.  It was extremely frustrating to say the least.  Or while I was taking notes on my day, I had no idea if I was writing on top of what I had already previously written or not.  And if I had, everyone would laugh at me.
   Throughout my day, I asked a lot of simple questions in order to simply function.  And this frustrated others because they did not understand because they do these tasks everyday without even thinking about them.  Due to the fact that I needed help with some things, people turned overly helpful and in doing so made me feel inferior to them.
   Maybe – hopefully - next time someone sees a disabled person instead of saying “freak,” they’ll say hi.  Because they deserve a lot more credit than they are given; I could barely go a day without my eyes, whereas they are strong enough to go without them for a lifetime.