After everything that had happened, I needed to know something.
Could I still go places?
Could I still travel, hear the sounds of somewhere new, feel the sun on my face and experience that feeling of getting away?
Apparently, I wasn’t willing to wait very long to find out.
When I left the hospital in February 2018, I was also turning 30. My friends and family filled a local restaurant to celebrate my birthday and the fact that I was finally home.
I couldn’t see everyone who was there. I worried that I hadn’t said hello or thanked everybody.
But I could feel them.
I could feel the love and warmth surrounding me.
And about a week later, my friend Rose and I got on a plane to Palm Springs.
Yes. I had barely gotten home from six months in the hospital and apparently decided international travel was the logical next step.
There were bumps and plenty of laughs as Rose guided me through security and the airport, but somehow we landed in Palm Springs and before I knew it, I was sitting poolside at our close family friends’ house.
The sun was on my face.
I was in a swimming pool.
I wasn’t in a hospital gown.
I felt alive.
Then Rose and I discovered shopping while blind.
Our system was simple. I held the back of the shopping cart while Rose pulled from the front, tossing clothes into it as we went. We’d head into a change room together, I’d put something on and she’d give me the verdict.
Yes to the shirt.
No to the pants.
Next.
After spending six months in hospital gowns, putting on real clothes again made me feel like a person.
Unfortunately, we were a little too successful.
We bought so much that we needed two additional suitcases to get everything home.
Then we realized the obvious problem.
How exactly was I supposed to hold my cane, hold Rose’s arm AND manage all this luggage through an airport?
So we improvised.
Backpacks went on our backs. My cane was attached to one of the rolling suitcases. Rose pulled two suitcases in front, and I followed behind pulling another.
We became a human luggage train.
It was ridiculous.
It worked.
And we laughed our way home.
That trip gave me something I desperately needed: proof that life could still contain adventure.
So I kept going.
I returned to Mount Washington, somewhere filled with childhood memories, and listened as my own children learned to snowboard and went tubing. I discovered something fascinating there too: snow absorbs so much sound. Hundreds of people could be around me and somehow the mountain felt quieter.
We went to Great Wolf Lodge, where I went down waterslides with my kids while they ran around having adventures with their cousins.
For the first time in a long time, it felt wonderfully ordinary.
We were simply a family on vacation.
Then came the big test.
A cruise.
I had grown up cruising with my grandparents and loved it, but people questioned whether I could still do it now that I was blind.
That was probably the wrong thing to tell me.
I decided I would take a cruise without my family first and prove—to them and probably to myself—that I could do it.
My girlfriends came along, and suddenly we were a group of ten.
I danced on the pool deck.
I played bingo.
I got off the ship at every port.
I walked through Mexico with sand under my feet, wind in my hair and music surrounding me.
And I learned something important about people.
Sometimes people didn’t know how to start a conversation with me anymore.
So I started it.
I talked to everybody.
Once I removed that awkwardness for them, suddenly we were just people chatting again.
I felt like me.
Of course, because apparently I can’t do anything without a little chaos, all our flights home were cancelled because of snow.
There may have been airport tears.
There was definitely an unexpected rental car drive from Los Angeles to Palm Springs through hail, snow and ridiculous traffic, with no music because we needed the GPS.
But we made it.
And after that first cruise, I knew I could do it again with my children.
So I did.
There was Alaska with my parents, my sister’s family and my kids. There were more weekends at Mount Washington. Then we cruised from Los Angeles to Mexico, where I listened to my kids experience warm ocean water for the first time.
I heard Blake bartering for friendship bracelets.
I listened as Taya searched for the perfect sunglasses.
I couldn’t see their faces.
But don’t ever mistake that for believing I wasn’t experiencing those moments.
I was there.
Over the years, the adventures kept getting bigger.
Blake and I travelled to Edmonton together.
Then we flew all the way across Canada to Halifax to visit our friend Alicia, bundled ourselves up in temperatures around -17°C, explored museums, visited Peggy’s Cove and—because I was travelling with Blake—of course found Pokémon stores.
And then, just recently, I did something that the woman who first left the hospital probably couldn’t have imagined.
I got on a plane completely by myself.
No friend holding my arm.
No family member travelling beside me.
Just me.
I flew to Edmonton on my own and came home on my own.
There was assistance when I needed it. There were strangers who treated me with kindness and respect. And there were moments when I realized just how far I had come.
Years earlier, Rose and I had been laughing our way through an airport as a human luggage train because I couldn’t imagine navigating it any other way.
Now I was flying on my own.
Being blind absolutely changed how I travel.
It never meant I had to stop going places.
I still can’t see the mountains.
I can’t see the ocean.
I can’t see my children’s faces when they’re experiencing somewhere new.
But I can hear their laughter.
I can feel snow beneath my feet.
I can put my toes in warm Mexican sand.
I can feel the sun on my face.
I can meet people, get lost, laugh, cry in airports, solve problems and collect stories along the way.
Maybe that’s what adventure has always been anyway.
Not seeing the world.
Experiencing it.
