But you look normal...

I can't count how many times I have gotten the question "what are your sticks?"  Or how many times I have been asked "How many fingers am I holding up?"  I guess that all comes along with being legally blind, but no matter how many times you answer the question, it tears at you that "normal" people don't have to answer questions for complete strangers.

Just last night I was out with my friend Madelyn at City Creek Center in SLC, as we were waiting to cross a street both with canes in our hand, an older gentleman asked us the usual question "What are your sticks for?" Maddy seems pretty pro at answering this question and so she answered the man. She explained that we were legally blind. The old man responded "I never would have guessed, you two look normal." We crossed the street and got on our way. (Maddy knows that mall, I seriously would have gotten lost without that girlie!)

After some dinner and shopping, we waited at trax to head back home for the night. (She was heading back up to the U and I was heading to FrontRunner to come back to Orem) a middle aged man asked us a usual blindness question, except I had never heard it phrased the way he said it. "What is your eye rating?" We again responded and this time went into detail of our eye conditions (my albinism and her glaucoma is what we told the man.) he again told us that we looked "too pretty" and he wouldn't have guessed..that was a little weird..

I've thought about what both men said to both Madelyn and I, and it made me wonder What is normal? What are we being compared to when they say we look normal? Do blind people look different than average people?

Our eyes look normal, I'll give some credit there. Maddy has blue eyes, I have hazel eyes, my eyes wiggle (nystagmus) her eyes don't. Our eyes just don't work the way normal eyes work.

We look normal, the only thing that gives our eye problem away is our canes, (or lack of, I'm sure running into everything would give it away also!) but we ARE normal, just with abnormal eyes.

And that is just my eye post on looking normal...

I have Albinism..but when you think albinism, you think ALL WHITE..the problem with that is I have color...I'm not pale white, I don't have platinum hair, and my vision isn't common to albinism.
I have a pretty rare type of albinism...HPS..and that comes with a bleeding problem (like seriously, no wonder I'm always a walking bruise!) so when I say I'm albino, not many believe me because I have color...again, normal! 

I guess I shouldn't get annoyed when we are told we look normal, because after all isn't that a good thing? Blind people are normal...and what is normal anyways??