The Blindfolds of Life

Wearing seventy pounds of gear, I’m crawling through the darkness, feeling for windows and door handles with one hand and holding an axe and a halligan with the other. Behind me are two others, who are my responsibility to lead. Stay with me, I keep saying. We have to stay together. 

We’ve been here for forty-five minutes, navigating through chairs and tables, trying to get to the other side, searching for bodies. In a closet, my handle hits something. I carry the body to the stairway, and that’s when the lieutenant tells us to take off our blindfolds. The search and rescue drill is over. I felt sweaty, exhausted, and accomplished. 

That’s not the only time I’ve been blindfolded. I wanted to master the board completely, so this time, against my mother, I put on a sleep mask. On the chess team for years, I was ready to take the next step, to memorize the spaces. My eyes could see nothing but blackness, but my mind could see the entire board.

When it was my turn, I announced my move (Pawn to D4) and my mom responded with Pawn to E6. The lack of vision increased my focus. I knew my next play before my mom had countered. Thirty minutes in, the match was over. I hadn’t only defeated her. I had conquered my own limitations and discovered my mental strength. 

As it turns out, even without a blindfold, I’ve always been kind of blindfolded. I don’t know what purple looks like. I mix up red and brown, green and yellow. In other words, I’m color-blind. In soccer practice, unable to tell the difference between the yellow and green pinnies, I actually asked players in the middle of the action, Are you on my team?

I have had to memorize the gauges for the aerial ladder on the firetruck. While everyone goes by color, I go by location. Whereas most students in school can just pick up the blue marker, I have to actually read the word on the label. Being colorblind has taught me to look for context clues, to be an informed problem solver, and to trust my other senses.   

As a volunteer firefighter, I have transformed from someone who didn’t know basic household tools to someone who makes a positive difference in my community. I have broken open doors, saved people in distress, put out fires, and restored chaotic streets to normalcy. Above all, I have become part of a brotherhood whose sole purpose is to help others. 

I consider myself an outside-of-the-box thinker. But, the truth is that my time “inside the box” has helped me tremendously. Being confined by colorblindness, blindfolds, and the emotional power of trauma(to personal so I removed it from this version of the essay) has taught me how to live in a world beaming with light.