Seeing Stars

I used to think that I was going to become an astronaut. Space had always amazed me, and I imagined touching the stars with my fingertips. I used to think that I would float in space, discovering black holes, different galaxies, exceptional universes- I was determined to see the only thing that I didn’t have access to.

But then, I couldn’t see it anymore.

You’d think that blind people would sit around and mope about how their life is meaningless just because they can’t see anything. For the first few years, I’ll admit, I did mope, but it was mainly because my parents were constantly feeling sorry for me. If there’s anything that blind people hate, it’s being pitied.

In fact, my mother still insists that she helps me wash myself even if I’m a perfectly able 17-year-old boy. She’s worried that I might slip in the bathtub, or pick up the wrong soap. Oh please, those things only happened, like, four times. Five times max.

The only one who seems to “get” me is my father, who tells me if I’m picking up Cheerios instead of Fruit Loops. He mainly leaves me alone, but he’s left me alone since I was 8 when the accident happened that conveniently made me blind. Our conversations are limited to how the weather is, or what I want to eat for lunch. Every time I try to talk to him, mom tells me that he’s left the room.

It’s hard, okay? I’ll admit that it aches to open up a Christmas present and not be able to process it until my mother tells me what it is. It sucks that I don’t get to see waves crashing down, no matter how much I used to hate the beach. It blows that the last time I saw a sunrise, I turned the other way and pulled the covers up higher.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that I can’t see. However, when I became blind, I neglected to tell everyone the only true advantage.

Now, I can really see.

I know when my mother is near, because the darkness fills up with dancing shades of pink, yellow, and white. Her voice echoes in my ear and the colors float around and appear and reappear. It’s what I imagine happiness looks like. When she cries, shades of dark blue fill the darkness, and when I reach over and touch her, the dark blues swirl and spin inside my head. I can only assume that this is what sadness looks like.

When my father enters a room, I see the color gray everywhere. They’re not dancing and spinning; they’re just there. A few days ago, he told me about how I used to be so good at soccer. He told me that I was a child prodigy and everybody thought that I was going to go pro one day. I touched him, and he stiffened. As soon as I touched him, the grays intensified and filled my brain so much that I had to let go. I think that’s what disappointment looks like.

I don’t want to tell anybody because people will think I’m more of a freak than they already think I am. It’s enough that I can’t do anything or go anywhere cool without being thoroughly confused; I don’t want people to be scared of me too.

But this girl tells me different. She tells me that people will accept me for who I am, and won’t make fun of me. She tells me that, at school, I’m known as the “cute blind kid”. She tells me that she likes it that I see colors. She’s the only one I’ve ever told.

It’s weird, because with her, I don’t see colors. I see something entirely different.

When she’s near me, I see flashes of light popping up in different parts of the darkness, and I know when she’s smiling because the light grows stronger and I can sometimes feel it beaming down on me. It’s what I imagine different galaxies look like.

She reads me notes from her astronomy class from time to time. I never have to beg her to do it, she always volunteers to. She exclaims about alternate universes and wormholes and about how time is relative and how space is so big that the average human mind can’t even comprehend it. Her voice gets animated and changes tone when she’s excited, and it’s one of the most beautiful sounds on earth. I’m thankful my hearing wasn’t taken away from me too.

She says that one-day, they’ll make a cure and I won’t be blind anymore. After I can see again, we’ll ride off in our spaceship and I can finally become the astronaut that I’ve always wanted to be. She says that our spaceship will look like a soccer ball, and will have an indoor soccer field for me to play in whenever I want to.

She says that no one can comprehend how big space is, but I can. I know that space is huge and has different layers and many shortcuts. I know that space is so vast that I can travel forever and never see the same thing twice. I know that space is so dark with flecks of light everywhere because that is exactly what I see whenever she comes into the room.

She helps me do my homework, and when we’re done, we lie down and she counts all the stars she can see for me. With her, I don’t need to see them. The first time I held her hand, I realized I already was an astronaut. When I feel her soft skin, a jolt of electricity runs through me, and a bright light fills my brain until it is illuminated, and no speck of darkness can be seen. It’s what I imagine touching stars feels like.