Runner Insight

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Sometimes being blind is painful…but not necessarily for me…

One afternoon, a few months after I was diagnosed with my eye disease, Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), I was out running. As I was descending the very long hill that I lived on, a vehicle slowed down, and then pulled up beside me.  A woman peered out the window of her SUV and asked me if I knew where Shadows Keep was.  Now Shadows Keep is a very high-end, swanky restaurant on the golf course, and happened to be located right at the top of the hill that I was at that very moment running down.

As I indicated, my vision, not being what it used to be, I thought the woman asking for directions was a friend of mine that also lived on the hill.  She was driving the same type of vehicle as my friend, though whether or not it was the same model or color, I have no idea. It just felt like her and it seemed like her vehicle. I thought she was my friend joking around with me.  So, presuming she’s trying to be funny, I leaned into the window of the car, and slapped her across the face!

Suffice it to say at this point in the story, as I’m sure you’ve already guessed…it wasn’t my friend. It was a stranger.

And yes, I did say I slapped her! Not hard mind you, but enough to get her attention. And I said, “Oh…..You!”  Then I spun around, and was off running again, shaking my head, thinking what a goof ball she was. “Very Funny.”

Just the vision of me slapping a stranger, and then la-la-la, turning away to continue on my run makes my partner laugh so hard, she’s wiping away tears. But let me tell you, the story gets even better…. You won’t believe this, but the woman comes back for more abuse!!

Understanding that, at the time, I was still thinking it was my silly friend just trying to be funny, it wasn’t until the vehicle approached me again, and I heard the woman’s voice calling out again “Excuse Me….Excuse Me, Miss?” that I even realized what I had just done! 

I stopped.

But really the horror and mortification in me just wanted to keep on running!  Of course, I apologized profusely, and explained to the stranger that I thought she was someone else.  In the midst of all this recognition and apology, I did manage to tell her that the restaurant was just up the hill, and she couldn’t miss it.

But I still don’t know what that woman was thinking, trying to flag me down again to get directions after I had just slapped her and all.

Masochistic?

Dumb?

Or Brave?  

Or maybe she was just really, really hungry? 

How bout it?

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Tags: blind, directions, eye disease, eyesight, restauraunt, Retinitis Pigmentosa, RP, Running, Shadows Keep, Vision, Vision Runner

This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under Montana, Running, Vision Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.