by Vicki Phipps

Created on: June 10, 2009

I've been a member of Helium.com for so long that I can't remember what I did without it. I refer to Helium as, "it," just because it seems I've never seen a single human being since I joined it. Besides, no one I know, in reality, knows what "it" is, so they ask all the time, "What is it?" That's when I always say, "It gives me something to do all day." Then, that's when those uninformed people always ask, "What is it that you do all day anyway," so I'll say, "I write, read and rate, for heaven's sake."

I try to explain that it simply arrived in my life one rainy day and by a twist of fate, "it," became what I do all day and half the night, rain or shine, every day and night of my life. I don't know why. It's not as if I'll get rich on it, and it's not as if anyone cares to be aware of what I say when I try to find a way to describe it. Even so, I feel so close to the group of writer's who read and rate what I write, in spite of the fact that I'm never seen by all those invisible human beings. It's interesting.

In fact, as I sit here today, typing away by the light of my magnified computer screen, I'm blind as a bat and having a hot flash, but in spite of those facts, I'm the only soul who knows it. Since I'm labeled as disabled, it makes no sense that I should be able to write online all the time, considering the fact that I'm legally blind. Obviously, it would be illegal for me to drive, so I can't go anywhere to do anything else, so I sit at home all alone and go online to write by myself, not in spite of being legally blind, but because I'm blind as a bat and at any given time, having a hot flash. I'd go insane without it, but beyond that, after a twenty five year career in teaching life skills to people with special needs, today my needs are special, to say the least, especially when it comes to what I do online all the time. It's like being lost and alone in the Twilight Zone. It's a place where nothing makes sense, because you see, my disability will always be invisible to you, whomever you may be. That's true at least if you are one of those invisible souls who rate my writing. That's why it's wise to keep in mind that I rate what you write too. It's a huge issue.

Some invisible human being even asked me to be a steward one day. I don't know who they were or what they looked like and they had never even seen me in their life, but they asked me just the same. I suppose they read what I wrote, and considering the fact that I used to

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>