Cane tip

I got a new tip for my long cane today.

Because I roll mine on the ground (some people tap theirs from side to side, and some other kinds of white cane don't touch the ground at all), the tip wears away. It's taken a few years for this to happen, but I don't use the long cane all the time: the shorter guide cane is enough for me in the brighter summer months when I can see a lot better.

I noticed my cane felt and sounded weird when I first came back to uni. I chalked it up to having forgotten what the surfaces around there are like, but when I looked at my cane I saw it wasn't fit for purpose any more: it had a chunk taken out of the bottom. It didn't roll right and it was making a really bizarre noise, sort of screechy and rattly. It certainly got people's attention when they were in my way and hadn't noticed me! But that wasn't really worth how annoying it was for me to have to listen to it all the time, and also I hadn't appreciated how much feedback I'd gotten from the sound of the cane until it stopped and was replaced by this terrible, useless sound.

Seeing the old and new tips next to each other made me laugh. I couldn't believe mine had ever been anything but the scruffy dirty thing before me today but it must've started out like this new one!

I'm feeling some kind of a way about this, to an extent that surprises me. I guess I think of myself as someone new to this white cane thing, since I only started...three?...years ago? (and a half). And my sight hadn't gotten any worse, it was just my idea about myself that'd changed. I guess it's still changing.