Lost in plain Sight

Finding What’s Right in Front of Me: A Story of Adjusting to Life Without Peripheral Vision

There are days when I swear my keys have vanished into thin air. I put them down just a moment ago, right on the table. I know they’re there, yet somehow, when I look, I just can’t see them.

That’s life when you have no peripheral vision. You start to realize how much you rely on those edges of sight. For me, those edges no longer exist. The world I see is limited to what’s directly in front of me. Everything outside that range is a mystery, hidden from view unless I intentionally turn my head to look. But if I don’t remember where I put something, it’s like it’s disappeared from my world entirely.

It took me a while to catch on to what was happening. At first, I thought I was just getting forgetful. I’d set down my coffee cup or my phone, get distracted, and then spend the next ten minutes searching high and low for it. Friends and family would tell me, “It’s right there!” as if it was just magically invisible to me. And, well, it sort of was.

One day, after what felt like the hundredth round of hide-and-seek with my keys, I realized that I needed a solution. My keys weren’t vanishing. I was simply putting them down and walking away, unable to find them later because they were lost in those edges of my vision.

I started experimenting with “drop zones”—specific spots where I’d place certain items, like my keys, my phone, or my glasses. I started small, creating a small “landing pad” by the front door where I could always set down my keys. After