Being a student in college, especially as I finish off my Freshman year, there is so much to reflect on, it's hard to believe I've made it this far. As I move toward my first summer break of my post-secondary career, I think of the year gone by, the lessons learned, the friends gained, and the memories made. Perhaps most of all, I think of how much I have changed. To tell that story, I must digress, and tell you more about myself.

I was born on December 12, 1997, an otherwise ordinary Friday. Yes, I actually took the time to look that up, just in case you were curious. So anyway, this would have been completely ordinary, if it weren’t for the microscopic detail that I was just 26 weeks old as opposed to the usual 9 months. I weighed in at a feather-light 1 pound 14 oz. My dad could hold me in his hand. There is a baby picture of me with a ring over 4 fingers as opposed to one if that helps put my size into context. And size was not the only oddity noted in those hospital days.

As a result of being born so early, my retina detached, as it was not developed enough to hold on on its own. This meant I lost a fair amount of vision, making me legally blind in both eyes. My condition, known as Retinopathy of Prematurity, is becoming more and more rare with advancements in technology.

I began to learn to read like other children, except the pages I read were filled with raised dots rather than lines, and I walked using a cane from about the age of 4. And so, began the days of bumping into things, being taught to navigate a world I could not see very well, and most of all, of being a kid.

Growing up, I had a lot of opportunities to travel and participate in a wide range of activities, including attending Space Camp in Huntsville Alabama for two years, traveling to California for the Braille Challenge in the summer of 2006, and countless others I will surely get to over the course of this journey.

I attended public school until the end of my sixth-grade year, at which point I transferred to a school for the blind, and split my time between there and the local public schools, where I finished out high school. Finally, this past September, I began life as a Warhawk at UW Whitewater, an experience that has changed me.

I want to share every detail from above in as crystalline detail as I am able to remember, giving you, my reader, an insight into my life, into a world that may be different from the one on the other side of your phone or computer screen, a world I will never understand. I want to show you a way of seeing things that travels beyond eyesight, a way of experiencing the world that will let you be open-minded, and allow me to grow as well. I hope you will stay with me through this journey, and I appreciate those that have stuck with me this far.