The man that found purpose after losing his sight

When I woke up in the hospital, they didn't tell me I was going to be blind for a while

It took me a long time to really come around to it and face it fully. I know it sounds odd that I was able to avoid facing something so all-encompassing as total blindness

but we'll tell ourselves a lot of things to make ourselves think what we do or don't want

I think the funny thing is it didn't really fully sink in for about, I want to say 10 or 12 years

I think the two things that hit me the hardest were that I couldn't drive anymore and I couldn't target shoot

I loved driving and I very much prided myself on target shooting

and those were two of the things that were going to be taken from me permanently

I had kind of a hard time growing up because I felt like I didn't really fit in

I felt kind of different than my peers, I guess. I'd been experiencing a lot of anxiety

I just constantly feared things. I feared being looked down upon by my peers

I feared getting in trouble by my parents because I was smoking cigarettes and I was drinking and I did whatever I could to hide it But the more I hid it the more it just eroded my soul

Finally, I got to the point where I just didn't want to do it anymore

I was just done. And then I went and sat in my car and did what I did

It didn't knock me out. Just went black. everything went instantly black

I definitely contemplated suicide after that again because no teenager wants to be different

I wanted to try to fit in as well as I could. After I shot myself and was blind

I got out of the hospital. I couldn't be the rebel that I wanted to be

So I moved back to Craig. It's where I grew up. I knew every square inch of that town

I got heavily involved in meth. I got in trouble, got put on probation for dealing drugs

Since most of my money was going to my habit, I was living in these really seedy boarding houses

I really was just kind of existing. I wanted to just be high all the time

Drugs kept me alive. It was my one reason for still living

And then it came to the point where I was going to either clean up my act or go to prison

Because that was a very real possibility Basically in my mind at the time it was okay I stop using long enough to get off probation and then I back on the horse But luckily once I finally did get totally out from under the spell I did want to be clean

I did want to be totally done with meth. And at that point, I didn't even know what my path was

I just knew that it had the potential to go to a much better place

And then, of course, I wanted to find a job. I wanted to get out on my own

I started working with vocational rehab. It's not a substance rehab. They are an organization

that helps you find employment, specifically with disabled people, but they also had the elective

of woodshop. Come to find out there is a very large community of woodworkers that are blind

and I've always really been into crafts, so I decided to give it a try, and it's one of those

things that came second nature to me. I have such a vivid visual imagination. It's really like I have

a computer design program in my mind. I'm able to literally take the layers and put them together

the shapes, the colors, and change anything and everything I want to. I pour a part of myself

into each piece. One of the things that I love the most about woodworking, I can take this design

that only I can see in my mind, and then I turn it into a real physical thing

that I can hand to you and say, this is what I see

There one other really good thing that happened Woodworking is how I met my wonderful wife Annie She my honeybee

I love her buzz. I felt this, like, belonging peace that told me this is where I'm supposed to be

I really, truly believe to be who I am and to do what I'm supposed to do, that I'm supposed to be blind

It's rewarding to feel that. It's also tough because there are definitely days that, yeah, I feel like I'm supposed to be blind, but damn it, I don't want to be

It's a complicated emotion. It's warm and fuzzy and cold and rough all at the same time

but it's something that has helped me come to peace with the world

I really think that. I feel like I had to lose my sight to truly gain my vision

I've finally decided to be me, to accept me for me. The opportunity to become the blind woodsman

and find my person to both share my gifts with and to help me share those gifts

It's helped me use that vision to look below the surface and beyond the horizon