Personal Narrative: Amblyopia

Amblyopia: the abandon of natural ability, an absence of sight, an acrobatics of the mouth, opened long, then wide, then suddenly shut. AH. EE. OH. EE. UH. Was my philomatic personality a direct consequence of my visual impairment? Yes, it was. There would have been no love of learning in me without the struggle of my half-blindness, or my determination to overcome it. Doctors predicted that I would not read, write, or drive. With such expectations thrust upon me, I was forced to live under tight restrictions or acquire a strong will. To my parents’ ire, I chose the latter. My first years were characterized by surgeries, eye-patches, and running into (mostly physical) obstacles. Slowly, I learned to correct my natural disability and attempted to reach peer’s achievements.
My initial goal was to be a professional ice-skater, an ambition I failed at spectacularly. A blind eye ruins natural balance, and I was consistently acquiring bruises from faulty jumps and spins. To rectify this weakness, I constantly practiced. Rushing into the local ice skating rink, I would nimbly lace up white skates, strap on black kneepads, and glide. For years my feet were corporal depictions of passion, dark bruising and blisters tangibly embodying my dream. It was on the ice that I

If I could not see the world as clearly as my peers, then I sought to understand it better. In middle school, I read my entire school library, one shelf at a time. By high school, I completed the Columbia College’s core curriculum, attempting to read four books a week and at least three hundred in a year. My endless pursuit of knowledge has taught me this: whatever I cannot see, I can discover in a book. Literature, at its core, is a pursuit of passion and meaning, each of us fumbling for a greater purpose beyond the fulfillment of our own desires. Thus, through information, I’ve begun to mend the physical rift between the world and