An Empowering Experience, And Things I Want To Happen This Year

[chelseajmunoz]

This particular blog entry will be a little different from the other blog posts I've written here in that I'll be doing some reflecting as well as sharing a recent empowering experience I had. This past Friday a friend and I spent the day traveling on trains to get to where we wanted to go. We left in the early afternoon, took Uber to the train station then spent a couple hours on said train. Our travel went pretty smoothly except for the fact that when we were on the first train my friend's cane got stuck in the train's open door. What had happened was that the two of us wanted to get off at a certain stop but the train closed its doors too quickly for that to happen. My friend and I'd both stood up really quickly once the conductor had announced that the stop we wanted to get off at was coming up. However since the train had closed its doors within 10 seconds of opening them all my friend and I could do was stand up on the train and wait for the next stop to be announced. Unfortunately my friend discovered that his cane had gotten stuck in the train door when the train door had already closed. Since the train had started moving shortly after my friend's cane had gotten stuck in the door though he tried to figure out how to get the conductor's attention. Some of the other train passengers tried to help us get the conductor's attention too. Once the conductor had seen us my friend explained to him what had happened. The conductor then opened the train door that my friend's cane was stuck in. Fortunately my friend's cane was intact. Once the conductor had recovered my friend's cane he showed my friend that there was a button on one side of the train doors. He then explained to my friend and I that if the button was pressed, the button would automatically alert the conductor that someone wanted to get off the train. Before the conductor had told my friend and I about this button and what it would do though my friend and I had no idea that there was even a way for someone to alert a conductor that he or she needed help. Since my friend and I'd missed the stop that we'd originally wanted to get off at though we waited until it was time for the last train stop to happen. Once the last train stop happened my friend and I quickly got off the train. Once we'd gotten off the first train we found a train station employee (redcap) who drove us in a cart so we'd arrive timely to the next train. Before we got on the second train though we stopped at a Starbucks near where the second train was located because I wanted to get something to drink. That particular Starbucks was only small enough for people to order food and drinks which made things a bit complicated for two blind people. After I'd ordered what I wanted to drink my friend and I did our best to find a place to stand where we'd be out of the way of people who were ordering their food. Although going to Starbucks is something that many people do regularly and without much thought, going to this particular Starbucks in that particular setting felt empowering for me. It was empowering for me because the environment was very noisy which made it a real challenge for me to navigate as someone who doesn't always feel like a confident blind traveler. So the fact that I was able to navigate a huge train station in such a noisy setting was eye-opening to say the least. Because honestly, just a couple years ago I'd completely lost what confidence I'd gained as a blind person over the years. The reason I'd lost a ton of confidence a couple years ago was because I had to have brain surgery to replace my shunt. Recovering from that particular surgery took me at least a year. Honestly though my confidence didn't start to come back until I started going to the gym this September. The more I went to the gym, the more confident in myself I became. The more confident in myself I became, the more I naturally wanted to actively do a wider variety of things. Being in this particular state has given me my confidence in ways I never thought possible. Although being in a new state has been overwhelming it's also been one of the greatest experiences of my life thus far. Since it's already the New Year here are some things that I want to happen for me going into 2018. This list is not written in a specific order but rather it's written in the order that I thought of the items in. 1. I want to continue to find the balance of being assertive yet kind when possible (not because I feel obligated to be kind to people but because kindness goes a long way. 2. I want to continue pushing the envelope in any way I see fit. 3. I want to continue my fitness journey of staying in shape. 4. I want to continue being in contact with people who grow me, people who support me through life's curveballs and successes and people who I can do the same for. 5. I want to continue actively looking for employment and maybe even actually get hired somewhere I love to work at! 6. I hope to continue progressing through the AppleCare Technician Training that I've recently purchased. 7. I want to keep growing in my knowledge of the Mac and any other technology that I can get my hands on. 8. I want to continue knowing my truths and sticking to those truths. 9. I want to continue using my voice (both verbally and written) to communicate what I believe to be right as well as to advocate for myself and the world at large. 10. I want to do what I can to make the world a much better place than it was before I came into it. 11. I want to live life to the fullest because in the past I have not truly done so. 12. I want to take advantage of more social and networking opportunities because both of those things will greatly contribute to my health in positive ways. 13. I want to continue working through shame rather than letting shame dictate how I move through life. 14. I want to continue to enjoy the freedom that being my authentic self provides me. 15. I want to read more Braille books because in the past I've tried to convince myself that reading audio books will have to do since there are probably more audio books that exist than Braille books. Interestingly I've been comfortable with the fact I'm not an auditory learner for years. However last year when I was at WSB I learned to be comfortable listening to VoiceOver read things. I think attaining that skill was definitely a great thing for me to do. What I think was extreme though was for me to stop reading Braille books just because audio books were easier for me to access. Braille is just as important to blind people as print is to sighted people. It feels weird to bring up the fact that I actually stopped reading Braille books for a time last year. However I wanted to give people a full explanation as to why I wrote here about the fact I want to read more Braille books this year.