There are certain facets of my life that, if not hilarious, are at least fairly amusing. And then there are some about which I may laugh, but which aren’t laughing matters.
I don’t hear very well.
OK, that’s not quite correct. I have significant hearing loss. If you’re not looking right at me, and if the room isn’t fairly quiet, and if I’m not paying close attention, chances are I have no idea what you’re saying and I’m only nodding to be polite.
Meetings are often a dull hum. A public address announcement might as well be a bird chirping in Mongolia. I find some comfort that most dire events are accompanied by flashing lights and extremely loud sirens or I’d have to actually see flames before I knew it was time to head for the exits.
Explaining why is something of a conundrum. I haven’t worked in particularly loud industries, and wasn’t any more guilty of music turned up to 11 than my now-fairly-more-hearing-blessed friends. Members of my family have hearing issues, but for the most part, they were job-induced. Whatever the case, my hearing was never good, and it has steadily gotten worse.
You find yourself more and more isolated when you can’t hear. Spontaneous conversation, the small interjections that shape or denote personality, are missed. When everything is a dull hum, it’s hard to distinguish the important from white noise, and, after time, easier to ignore it all. After a while, it’s all white noise.
Your family and friends tend to move on. Group conversations can be fairly Darwinian experiences, and if you can’t hear, you’re that part of the herd that gets left behind with your thoughts. I love reading, in part because I just enjoy the experience and in part because when I’m reading, I don’t miss the punch line or the plot point. There I can keep up.
There was no great epiphany that led me to do something about my hearing, no Damascus experience that finally helped me to see the light, even if I couldn’t hear the noise. The reality is, I just got more tired of not being able to hear what was going on than I was worried about how I would be perceived when someone noticed I’d had to do something about it.
And so, after some fairly repetitious and somewhat embarrassing tests and a very thorough consultation, I’ve been fitted for a pair of small, battery-powered devices that are re-connecting me to the world.
It’s been somewhat, well, jarring, to say the least. After not hearing the details and audible fine print of life for some time, it’s a bit disconcerting to realize just how loud life actually is. A co-worker opened a bag of chips behind me and I thought the building was collapsing. The sound of rain on the roof of a car, which was a dull patter for years, suddenly sounds like someone trying to take the top off with a chainsaw.
If your hearing loss has been going on for some time, you have no idea just how many devices have built-in alarms demanding your attention. And I still have to caution folks that these are hearing aids, not keys to a super power. If you speak in Teenager Mumble or College Girl Auctioneer-ese, I probably still can’t understand you. However, now I do feel some comfort in the fact that, outside your current tribe, neither does anyone else.
In a way, it’s like I’m being re-introduced to a critical element of life, like I’m suddenly in on the joke again. My granddaughter has a delightful giggle. My wife’s slight Southern accent is so charming. So those are the lyrics to U2’s “Beautiful Day.”
I have my moments. I’m not sure how happy I am that the slight silver wire of the hearing aids blends in so well with my hair color. And when you rejoin the hearing world, there’s suddenly a lot to take in, which can be confusing. There is also that slight panic when I have to take the hearing aids out at night and I go into what the Lovely Mrs. Smith refers to as “radio silence.”
As I’ve said for some time, I’m not going to presume to tell anyone else what to do, or to try to set their priorities for them. You deal with your issues as you see fit. All I can say is that for me, for some time, it hasn’t been a lot of fun. And that’s better now.
I can laugh again, maybe because now I have a better idea of how many things are actually funny.