strange musings of a distracted spunk

The thing about being me is I don’t exactly fit into the hearing world. But I don’t exactly fit into the deaf world either. I don’t pay attention to hands moving, unless it’s to accentuate the shapes their mouths make. But I can’t turn around and hold a full-fledged conversation with someone standing behind me either. My version of hearing involves context clues, lip-reading, and making the most of my hearing aid. It’s in this way that I often pass for hearing.

But I cringe every time I hear someone speak in a deaf voice, their words sounding out what it should look like, rather than what it sounds like. The whining tones annoy me, irrationally, because I would sound like that too if it weren’t for modern inventions.

I don’t suppose I’ll ever know what really happened. My mother’s side says I was born deaf. My father’s side says I had an ear infection and lost my hearing. Neither side accounts for my ability to speak as clearly as I do, with the exception of an s, z, x, and ch. It’s pretty difficult to repeat sounds you can’t hear; after a while, between the fast speaking and the overactive brain, my language can get sloppy. I can pronounce the hiss of an ’s’, but more often, it sounds like a ‘th’ because I simply don’t care enough to focus on bringing my teeth together. I can pronounce the choppiness of a ‘ch’, but that requires moving my tongue to the back of my mouth, when I could just leave it behind my teeth for a ’sh.’

My kind of hearing works for me. I can take my hearing aid out when I’m tired of hearing the world, when I’m tired of hearing just how much noise there is, when I just want to curl up with a book and read and rely on my visual sense and imagination instead.

But then, my kind of hearing was challenged. Mysteriously, randomly, some of the nerves in my cochlear wiped out, and took approximately 30 decibels of sound that I previously had had with them. For someone who was only operating at about 27%, 30 decibels is a lot to lose. I was suddenly plunged from severe to profound, the last label before you fall off the cliff into total silence. I wanted it back. My hearing aid was no longer powerful enough; I had to adapt. Certain sounds got lost. I used to be able to hear most birds chirping with my hearing aid. I couldn’t anymore. I used to be able to hear crickets and sopranos hitting the highest notes. I couldn’t anymore. My speech patterns changed; they became sloppier. I couldn’t have a conversation with someone standing behind me as easily anymore; I needed to really focus on lip reading to understand the words tossed my way.

When I had lunch with my childhood best friend a year ago, she immediately noticed the difference. She said, “You sound a bit different. And you never had to pay this much attention to me when we were younger.” It was startling, but acute the way she so accurately diagnosed the changes.

I had the opportunity to recoup my losses. Still do, in fact. When those 30 decibels wandered away, I became an unlikely but eligible candidate for a cochlear implant; a device that for all intents and purposes recreates the cochlear and electromagnetically works to simulate sound in your ear.I was warned that I heard so abnormally well with my hearing aid that I may never reach that same stage with my cochlear implant.

It didn’t matter, I said. I’m impulsive at best, brash at worst. Just give me the implant, I said. I was afraid of not being able to communicate anymore, of losing the grip I had on the hearing world, of my connection to my family and friends. Who would hire me if I couldn’t hear anymore? What would I do? I took so much for granted, the idea of not having any hearing at all scared me out of my wits.

So I had the surgery. I woke up with a sore neck from my head being turned all the way to the left so they could operate on my right ear. I missed the American Idol finale where Ruben Studdard beat out Clay Aiken, which I thought was a travesty. I was knocked out by pills, though I don’t remember being in much pain. Just feeling the scar behind my ear, where they had sliced open my head to relieve pressure on my ear. I can still feel it sometimes, a line behind my ear, though no such line exists anymore.

A month later, they turned the implant on for the first time. And for the first time in twelve years (as I had flushed my hearing aid for the right ear down the toilet accidentally on purpose when I was seven), there was sound filtering through my right ear. It didn’t sound like much. White noise, maybe. But it was sound, nonetheless, where there hadn’t been sound before. Suddenly, I was faced with the reality of it all. There was sound coming from my right ear, while my left ear kept disappearing. There was sound coming from my right ear, but my brain was so unprepared, I had a sudden headache. How do you retrain your brain to hear? To translate the signals sent from false nerves from the ear that had previously been as useful as an appendix.

I would take my hearing aid out and listen to music with my cochlear implant on. I could pick out the rhythms, the bass, but how much of that was from memory and how much of that was from actual sound? Suddenly, I was faced with my worst fear. It wasn’t about losing my hearing. I had done that. I could handle that. But what if this implant, with my hearing aid, showed me all the sounds I didn’t know existed before? It’s a bit like telling a full man he’s still hungry. How can you know he’s hungry if he feels full? I felt that I had all the sound in the world that I needed. I could hear my cats purr, I could dance along to the beat, I could even listen to the quiet still of a summer night at my parents’ camper. Was I ready to recategorize the world, when I thought I had it already carefully labeled?

So I put the cochlear implant down. Five years later, I’ve only touched it here and there. The magnet in my head is a party trick, to stick refrigerator magnets on and joke about how I’m the most electronic of all my friends. Until last night, when I watched a documentary about a couple who decide to get cochlear implants at the age of sixty five years. Sixty five years of never hearing sound, and they’re willing to trade all that to hear what the rest of the world can. Was it easy? No. Is it ever easy?

But I wonder. What am I so afraid of? Even as I write this, I still can’t summon the courage to take out the cochlear implant and tuck it behind my ear. What would have to change for me to accept it? Am I waiting for more decibels to drop, to lose my hearing for good? Am I waiting for some sort of sign, that I’m ready to hear again, if I’ve ever heard before? Or am I just really…a fucking coward? Who will let her fears of not knowing the world as it was anymore override her fears of never hearing again?

The trouble with my kind of deaf is you don’t really fit in either category. You hear but you don’t. You reject the deaf community outright, but you don’t exactly fit into the hearing one either. Is it time to make a change?

I went all the way to Vancouver, Canada to get hooked on American Gladiators.

No, really! While Princess Pointful made a yummy dinner, her boyfriend and I debated what to watch on TV. “The Big Bang Theory?” I said.

“Nah.”

“Dancing With the Stars?”

*dirty look*

“Ugh, Punchline is on.”

“What’s that about?”

“Sally Field and Tom Hanks.”

“Oh god no. I can’t stand Sally Field. Let’s watch American Gladiators!”

I gave him a look. “Seriously?”

“It’s good. You’ll like it. They’re crazy.”

Twenty minutes later, I was yelling at the television like a mad woman. “Watch out for Helga! Why is it so difficult for them to swim the entire length of the pool? Do the breaststroke, it’s faster! What are you doing?! He’s going to crush you! What’s the Wolf? Oh. That’s the Wolf. Ewwww.”

American Gladiators was one of those shows that was cool to watch on Saturday early afternoons, after Saved By the Bell because those people were crazy and scary, and also, it was the impetus for Guts on Nickelodeon. When it went off the air all those years ago, I never thought much of it, even when it returned. But now that I’m in Canada? I actually turned down an opportunity to go out with some of Princess Pointful’s friends because I wanted to watch Major Pain try to get past freaking Helga. (Incidentally, Helga looks like a two hundred and five pound version of a girl I went to high school with.) I was so involved with the show, I couldn’t even keep up with the conversation, because there was a former Para-Olympics medalist with one leg trying to succeed on the Eliminator. (On a side note, hand pedals? What demon conjured up that torture trap?)

As I got more involved with American Gladiators and the plight of one John Siciliano who only has the one leg, so did the others in the living room. And as we watched him try to keep his balance on a tightrope, or run down a spinning barrel, or climb up arm first on a teeter-totter rather than run up, it began to feel a bit like you couldn’t look away. But as he persevered, I realized, had I been him, I would have been pissed to know people were aww’ing every time I succeeded at doing something I had initially set out to do.

The guy who did win, after three minutes and twenty seconds did a great job, but he was ignored in favor of the human interest story of the guy who was disabled and still playing the game. The crowd began chanting, “Go John, go!” and you could see the looks on people’s faces as though they wanted to see him succeed but every time his prosthetic leg went wayward, they’d grimace. Hell, even I grimaced, because I wanted to see this guy kick Gladiator ass.

The camera stayed focused on John, zooming in to show his awkward gait because much of his weight had to be stored on one leg, regardless of the black prosthesis attached to him. It began to feel like an exploitation of his disability, rather than a genuine portrait of giving a guy a fair shot. At the end of it all, while people cheered, I was frustrated. I saw parallels in how people played up the inspirational aspects of his activity to how people have suggested I am an inspiration. I don’t think most people set out to be an inspiration. In my case, I lost my ears and did what I had to do. I don’t find anything about that inspirational.

I doubt John feels differently; in an interview at the end, he said, “If you want to do something, get up and do it.” There’s nothing heroic or poignant about that. Nike’s been riding on the “Just Do It” slogan for as long as I can remember. It’s not about setting an example. It’s about achieving goals. Why are we so eager to confuse the two when it involves someone making do with the hand they’ve been dealt? When sympathy and encouragement often walk the same line of a disability, it’s harder to be thought of as an inspiration for just living our lives.

And to think. All this came from watching American Gladiators in Canada. Not bad, eh?

Several summers ago, I got an e-mail out of the blue from a girl who graduated a year ahead of me. I remembered her as loud; when we read the Canterbury Tales, she was quick to point out that climbing a tree to have sex was probably not the most comfortable. I often laughed loudly and heartily at her defenses during class, but we rarely talked outside of that. While we had been friendly, and had overlapping social circles sometimes, we never really hung out alone.

The e-mail surprised me. It thanked me, for inspiring her. For showing her that it was possible to lose one’s hearing and still continue on to do anything I wanted to do. She had been working as a teacher for the last year, until a tumor was detected in her brain. When they removed the tumor, they also removed some of her hearing. She asked me to come to a party of hers, in North Jersey, because she really wanted to introduce me to some people as the person who reminded her that losing one’s hearing wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

I didn’t really know how to say no to that. At that point, D was back at school taking summer classes so he could graduate a semester early. Most of my other friends who I would have usually asked to accompany me to such an event were out of town or busy. So I scrolled through my phone book, and found C.

C. was that perfect blend of acquaintance with a smidge of attraction. We met in a Communications class, but not until the very last one, where our professor instructed us to go out and test our communications skills by asking random people to allow us to try on their coats. Naturally, we made it a competition. Guy vs. girl: who would succeed? The winner of the night was me, after I scored a wool alpaca coat that retailed somewhere around $400 and the woman practically handed it over to me without any questions. He acquiesced and acknowledged that I was utterly cool, and much better at communicating than he was. But it didn’t hurt that I was pretty cute too, in his words.

“Want to go to a party with me?” I texted.

“Sure! When?”

Easy enough.

He picked me up in a car that I was positive would fall apart on the New Jersey Turnpike. We proceeded to look for what has to be the smallest square mile of town in New Jersey. Finally, after finding it, we parked and rolled out of the car, to the backyard party that was full of drunk doctors and nurses. Oh, of course. The girl who had just had surgery thought it would be fun to have a Dirty Doctors and Naughty Nurses party. She was a walking hormone, I often thought.

We made small talk. He talked about films, his motorcycle, and how he hated the people in some of his classes. I talked about work, how I hated my boss who judged me for being deaf, and general chit-chat. Sometimes, he’d lean into me, or I’d brush my arm against his. I couldn’t really tell though; was he just being friendly? Or was he into me? The night continued as we watched people dive into the above-ground pool, their black or pink or red bras peeking out beneath the soaking white costumes. We laughed, chatted convivially with those around us. Finally, we left.

The conversation wasn’t substantial, I don’t remember much. I invited him into my parents’ house, as they were away for the weekend, and I really didn’t know where the evening was headed. So we talked more, a theme of the night, my beaded necklace dangling against my collarbone and the heated air pushing against my bare legs. I couldn’t tell if he was nervous or I was nervous, but finally, one of us suggested we call it a night.

We leaned in. I decided his behavior dictated friendship more than relationship. I aimed for his cheek, when I realized it was his lips coming straight at me. Immediate instinct propelled me to duck.

Yeah. I ducked. On a kiss. Then I realized what I did. And popped back up. And went for the unnecessarily long hug. You know. That kind. The one where you hold on for slightly longer than comfortable, but you’re not entirely sure when to back away.

“I had a really great time,” I said. “Really.” (Did my face give away that I was absolutely mortified?)

“Me too,” he said. He turned and walked out the door.

I verbally whiplashed myself, wondering what the hell was wrong with me. Who DUCKS on a freaking kiss? I rationalized it was okay, because he hadn’t been giving off the flirty vibe so much, so I wasn’t prepared for it, and usually I have a good idea when a boy is about to kiss me. Usually.

Typically, the story would end here, awkward moments to end awkward moments.

I texted him again, the next day, to thank him for coming with me to the party and that I hoped to see him again soon. There was no response.

“He hates me,” I thought. I convinced myself that he would never speak to me again. Because seriously. That would be a blow to anyone’s ego, no matter how self-assured they were. (Watch, now someone’s going to duck on a kiss on me soon.)

Three weeks later, I got a text from him, which surprised the heck out of me. “I’ve been forgiven!” I thought. I opened my phone.

“Hey, sorry about that. Just got out of the hospital. I got into a bad motorcycle accident the day after we went out and I’ve been in the hospital ever since.”

Awkward moments. I has them.

The last time this happened, I was just about to embark on my first spring break as a college student. My ear felt fuzzy, as though someone had rubbed gallons of wax into it, and then doused it with water that had solidified. It wasn’t something I noticed until I put my hearing aid in that morning and realized everything sounded off. What normally sounded more clear and precise (except for those pesky s’s) sounded as though someone had lowered the volume on the remote control of life without giving me any warning. I shook my head, thwacked it against my left hand, hoping to dislodge whatever it was that was stuck in my ear.

It took me a few minutes of thwacking and shaking to realize that it wasn’t anything I had done. I had just gone to sleep and woken up, gotten dressed for my linguistics class. My hearing aid is the last thing I put in, always, because I take pleasure in absorbing the world visually. Although to be honest, I don’t know if I have always done that, or started doing that after moving out of my parents’ house, after the first time my hearing dropped overnight, the week before my senior prom. (My hearing or lack thereof has spectacular timing, you see.) It may have become a cultivated art, partially out of fear that I’ll wake up again with less hearing than I had the night before, or perhaps I genuinely do like relying on my body to direct cues to me in other ways. There’s something about watching the smoke sizzle in a frying pan, or the colors of a blaze burning underneath an omelette. I think there are more subtle nuances we lose touch of when we have more of our senses to guide the way.

That morning, when I put my hearing aid in, I didn’t need to test it against the shouts of my mother and sister in yet another early morning fight like I had the first time. I didn’t have to sit through AP Psychology, wondering if Sybil was laughing or crying. My ear had failed me yet again, somehow robbing me of 15 more decibels while I slept soundly, not even six hours of slumber. As though I had multiples of decibels to give, instead of only 30. Where I had once been hearing impaired, I was now deaf.

I didn’t know this, of course. All I knew was my hearing aid was no longer strong enough to compensate for my damaged nerves. A phone call, where I could barely distinguish the words from the individual consonants and vowels that made up each syllable was made to a friend who had been there the last time, when it dropped right before we said goodbye to our high school years. An e-mail to my professor, notifying her that I would not be making it to class today, and could I please make up my absence for that date after spring break? A translated phone call from my friend to my mother, where I could hear the worried tones of my mother’s voice in my head, but not in my ear, where I should have been able to hear her voice.

I sat. I waited. I watched the white text on the black screen at the bottom of my television. I made my bed, smoothed the corners and rounded out the pillows. I packed my bags. This wouldn’t be a one-day thing.

Another day, another activity, suddenly hushed tones. I had been up for hours, my alarm clock shocking me out of sleep and sending me on my way. My hearing aid is still the last thing I put on the morning, just before I run out the door.

A moment ago, the office had been vibrant, laughter shaking my cubicle, the plant on the filing cabinet just outside my walls creeping further in with every open and shut of a drawer. I shook my head, jerked it from side to side. Still quiet. My fingers stopped writing, my brain stopped firing synapses and all I could think was, “Oh please, not again.” It’s been more than five years since the last time, six since the time before that, and twenty one from the very first. I don’t remember the first. I don’t want to remember the last two.

I took my hearing aid out, examined the mold for wax. Perhaps the ear canal was torn, as has happened before? Negative. Was the hearing aid loose? Nyet. Can this really be happening? Please tell me this isn’t happening. I’m not ready for this. I don’t want to be completely deaf. If I lose this, I can’t wear a hearing aid again, and then what will happen to me?

My mind’s eye took me to my parents’ house in New Jersey, where I would have to move back to, where I sat and watched words on the screen, idly stroking my cat’s back while I waited for one of my parents to take me to an auditory therapist. Where we would try to teach my brain to accept sound coming from my right ear, where there hasn’t been sound, at least no more than buzzing, for as long as I can remember. My life here would be over. My life in New York would be over. Would I have to become dependent on sign, no longer privy to the conversations and neologisms of every-day dialogue? Would I forget what words sounded like, what voices sounded like, lose my own voice to become one of deaf-speak? Would I lose myself, my ability to fare on my own, and be unable to cope with the world when my ears had failed me at twenty three years?

I could feel the tears welling up in the corners of my eyes. I grabbed headphones and played my iPod, knowing that would be a false alarm because I could always hear music, even with a cochlear implant, something that makes little sense to me and anyone else. Wouldn’t that be the greatest of ironies to only hear music, and not be able to play? Would music become the language in which I expressed myself, unable to communicate otherwise?

The headphones came off. The sound resumed. My body relaxed, slightly, waiting for the most insignificant of cues to make my nightmare real. Like waiting for a period, the red drop of blood in your underwear to warn off any unexpected pregnancies, it was a false alarm.

I breathed.

A friend and I went out for dinner tonight. I asked the hostess for a table in a quiet section.

Hostess: Why?

Me: …So I can hear? *points to ear*

Hostess: What’s wrong with your hearing?

Me: Um…I’m deaf?

Hostess: But you can hear me.

Me: Er…no. I’m reading your lips right now.

Hostess: Oh cool!

Me: *blinks*

Because you know. Being deaf means you automatically sign. There’s no such thing as a gradual loss of hearing after developing speech skills. At all.

Befuddled? Me? Yes.

Sometimes I get frustrated with having to process thought on three separate levels. Unlike most individuals, I can’t just listen and process and translate in a snap second, a response on the tip of my tongue. I feel sharper in the written world than I do in the verbal, mostly because it’s too easy for me to miss a crucial line of a joke or statement. Nothing ruins a joke faster than someone asking you to repeat it, after everyone else has laughed.

I suppose that was one of the things I loved about D. No matter where we were, what we did, he would always make me feel part of it, even when he was teasing me about my fake deafness. If there was something going on and I couldn’t understand, he wouldn’t tell me never mind, or brush it off. He’d just enunciate carefully, having learned at the stern hand of my need to make it easier on me. We could be at a loud concert, and he’d text me instead of trying to scream at me across the crowd. Or he’d stand on the opposite side of a crowded room, lip reading to me and telling me jokes to make me laugh, to the point where I didn’t care for anyone’s attention. There was a sense of a secret world that only we shared, and that might be part of why it took me so long to give up on the hope that it would be us.

On post secret the other day, someone wrote, I’m scared that because I’m minoring in American Sign Language in college my kids will be deaf one day. Immediately, I wanted to find the person who wrote that, shake them up, tell them that deafness is not the end of the world. That I think it’s made me work harder to prove that not only was I as good as everyone else, but I could be better. That I could be the best dancer, the best writer, the best basketball player, the best student, etc. I don’t doubt there’s a modicum of overachievement drizzled through my blood, but I think the disability forces me to push myself even harder to be someone. I don’t want to be the deaf girl. I want to be the girl who gets up at graduation and gives a speech, her slight lisp the only indication that she might be something out of the ordinary.

I should perhaps clarify. I wasn’t born deaf. Deaf is something that came to me shortly before my eighteenth birthday. For the fifteen or so years prior to that, I was simply hearing impaired. A beige compact device snug against my ear, the mold often a clear color, shielded by long hair and extravagant earrings. I’ve never learned to sign more than the alphabet and a few words, and that was my decision. I chose to be part of the oral world, knowing full well that my role in the oral world would be a much different one than most. For starters, the mouth would be accompanied by the body language and the most minute gestures others easily miss. When I say fake deaf, it’s because I don’t exist on the realm of true deaf individuals, fingers flashing and lips moving in a mimicry of what sound must look like. But I don’t entirely fall easily onto the hearing realm either - when my boss pronounces a name I’m unfamiliar with, I must ask her to write it down because certain letters get lost between the vowels and consonants I do recognize. Instead, I float somewhere in between, where I dictate the rules of how my language both communicates and interprets.

I’ve never wanted to be the stereotype, something a boss of mine once ascribed to me when I worked at Nordstrom for three summers. She would repeat things over and over, slowly, as though my brain were at fault, and not just the nerves inside my cochlear. I secretly relished all the times she would get flustered and annoyed at my ability to pick up on things quickly, because I was supposed to be the dumb deaf girl. In a way, the hearing, processing, and translating functions of my false ears only serve to speed the efficiency at which my mind works. It flows from subject to thought without a single glance, only to return back to the same subject hours later, having traveled to Jupiter and back in the same time it takes to twist off a bottle cap.

Granted, there are just some things I can’t do. I can’t play team sports that involve coordination and collaboration, because I won’t ever hear someone call my name. I can’t follow in my parents’ footsteps and be a lifeguard. I can’t go whitewater rafting and actively participate because my movements won’t be in sync with the others. But when there’s a can’t, I make a can. My grand jete is always going to be more graceful and to the leap of the bass, and I am one heck of a ping pong player, if I do say so myself.

If I weren’t deaf, I might just be average. And then I’d be boring. Instead, I get to watch the way words spark off someone’s tongue, how their lip rolls give their emotions away before they even say their thoughts. I can play voyeur to an unwitting conversation on the bus or train. I can think more about the words and their meaning, see through the false layers and to the flickering jumps from their vocal chords to the outward world. It may not be something I’d necessarily wish on someone else, but it seems to me I’m doing just fine with it. We cope. We learn. We live. There are always sidesteps. But my deafness doesn’t need to be mine.

Today was the all promised day of pupil dilation. By nature, I’m a friendly, cheerful, bubbly person, with loads of sarcasm popping out in between the squeaks and cheers. Things haven’t been the best lately, which is understandable, and thank you all for your support and encouragement that it’s okay to cry - believe me, I have, but only when I think about the life I no longer will have with him. But it is Monday! And February! And I got to leave work early to go to the eye doctor! Whoo!

We ended up chatting, since my eye doctor is actually an optometry student and I liked her very much and felt very comfortable with her. She understood rather quickly that my eyesight is terrible. I’m probably about a few prescriptions away from legal blindness, in which case, I shall be the Helen Keller of the 21st Century. Annie Sullivan, anyone? So we would be tossing on my glasses in between the different eye examinations so I could hear, since my hearing is based on reading lips.

In case you might have forgotten what the eye examination plus dilation is like:

1. Read multiple lines, preferably the smallest, with a random stick covering one of your eyes. What they fail to take in account is short-term memory. I may not actually see the Z V T O C 2 combination you got going on down there at the bottom in one of my eyes, but I remember it!

2. Stare at wherever your hand happens to be (your ear? Okay!) while you practice blinding me while my head and chin are pressed to a contraption and tell me to blink. Party on!

3. The better or worse game. “1 or 2? 2 or 3? 3 or 4?” Anyone ever notice that 1 and 3 are exactly the same?

4. Flip my lid!

5. Orange eye drops. Ow. Ow. Ow.

6. Pressurizing eye drops. Are there points for how fast your head spins out of whack? After the light apparatus was used again, I told the doctor-to-be I didn’t remember the last time I had double vision. And then I very acutely recalled a night in someone else’s bed where we spent equal amounts of time hugging the bowl and hugging each other, this time in an X-rated way. And I’m pretty sure that’s the last time I had double vision.

7. Pupil dilation! I went to get my glasses tightened at this point and had to sign a piece of paper saying it was okay if they accidentally broke my glasses. I was being mocked. I can’t see anything unless it’s about two inches away from my nose. But dilated pupils means I can’t see anything up close. It never takes me that long to read anything. Winner!

8. “Now I’m going to check the back of your eyes.” “…how do you do that? Do you take my eyeballs out?” “Yep, we have special devices for that one, it’ll just be a nice and easy pluck.” Score one for doctor student.

There was discussion of possibly having potential retinal detachment. If there are shadows in the sides of my eyes, I’m to go back to the doctor.

So with a minor accident of knocking something off the counter onto the receptionist’s lap, a new pair of trendy, fashionable, Vogue-style sunglass inserts, I made my way outside thinking it couldn’t be that bad. Insert heathens singing as the sunlight destroys my eyes. The last time I felt like this was when I slept over Jack of All Trades’ house and woke up with vampire eyes, unable to tolerate the light and had to shower in the pitch black because my eyes were closing themselves to block out the light. That one lasted for a pleasant nine months - contacts, meet red blood cells. Attack! I think I scared my students and the people who rode in the subway cars with me. “How does such a pretty girl end up with such red eyes? She must be coked out, honey, let’s move away from her. “

I somehow shuffled downhill before realizing I was at an intersection. And it was bright. And I could not see. And no one was around me. Score! I stepped out into the intersection a few times before realizing I was about to get hit if I didn’t move back (and this is when hearing would actually work in my favor), before finally making it across intersection number one. Intersection number two wasn’t so bad. And then! I was home, safe and sound. Just for one thing. I had no keys.

I thought it might be the vision screwing with me, but after emptying out the book, concealer, birth control pills, pocket mirror, chapstick, cell phone, and wallet from my bag, it occurred to me that surprise! No keys to be found. So I was now visually impaired, hearing impaired, and locked out.

Luckily, a neighbor let me in to the building and let me borrow her computer to call my roommate’s work number, as he wasn’t answering his cell phone. She complimented me on my spiffy shoes (the ones from a few weeks ago), and contact was made! Off I went for round two of DS and the dilated pupils!

Crossing this intersection was also difficult. Luckily, I only live a block away from campus. I only managed to not get hit by one car this time, rather than several. Rocking the sunglass shade inserts, I walked onto the side of campus I was completely unfamiliar with. And promptly found a map. Maps are kinda hard to read from a distance, and I couldn’t exactly read them up close (thanks dilated pupils!) so I was doing a bit of a weaving and bobbing and ducking thing before I sort of figured out where I was looking for.

To the Life Valley Sciences Building! Onward and forward! Walking, walking, walking, ahhhh! Sunlight. Doom. To make matters worse, there was now a white building, a beacon of light, stabbing at my poor overly sized pupils. I immediately stared at my feet, but found someone to tell me where said building was, and of course, it was the white blasphemy trying to destroy my eyes. Honestly? With the luck I’ve had lately, I wouldn’t be surprised to wake up with less vision than the day before - my hearing thinks it’s fun to play that game.

Staring at my feet the entire time, I managed to not trip up the stairs (a feat in and of itself), before reaching the hallowed doors that led me to a set of keys. My roommate dropped them off, made no note of my stylish self with the sunglass inserts, and it was me and the world again, warriors at odds. I braved the sun, to make it home, to sanctuary, where my eyes were beginning to undilate themselves.

The doctor told me it would take about 4-5 hours. Apparently, an hour of adventure was enough for them. So! For future reference, should you ever get tired of having dilated pupils, lock yourself out of your apartment while looking like a fool, and trip over random things. It works wonders for your vision!

If you haven’t been following, I had a training conference thing in LA. It’s been one hell of a trip - between the not sleeping, driving for lots of hours, lots of hotel rooms, stupid speakers, accidentally flooding the bathroom while I showered (leaving me without any dry pajama pants or shorts to wear to bed - don’t do that), tripping into half walls, making friends with the hotel staff and getting a huge thing of popcorn and all sorts of free things, and more. I’ve met some cool people, and surprisingly, I got hit on more or less.

I don’t get it. But I knew it was going to happen. He started talking to me at the bar on Tuesday night. I made small talk then zoomed off to my table to eat. We’d wave and nod as we saw each other on Wednesday. And then today, as I sat on a half-wall trying to warm up from the below-zero conference rooms, he walked into his room and I knew he was going to walk back out to talk to me. Don’t ask me how. I just knew.

Yep. Sure enough, he walks over to me and we make small talk about surfing, beaches, Los Angeles, New York, NYU, law school, how bullshit the whole thing was, etc. And then he asked for my contact information. I gave it to him - why not? I’m not looking for another guy to be involved with, but I do enjoy new friends.

However, to be fair, there was a bit of a tense moment last night. Where GDB and I were discussing the state of our non-relationship, and he seemed to think I could read his mind. I asked him if he thought he could ever do the whole L-word thing with me, and he said “Fucking absolutely.” However, it was quite an experience trying to figure out what exactly he thought we were doing.

After frustrating back and forth where he said I knew how he felt about the situation, I finally told him, “Dude. You seem to assume that I assume that you feel this way about me, but I’ve made too many mistakes in the past from assuming, so now you have to spell things out. You know - when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me.”

GDB: Bah.

Me: That’s a sheep noise.

Him: Nope. I’m a ram.

Me: You’re an obstinate ass is what you are.

Him: *bows* As are you, m’lady.

The man’s got a point. So much so, that my displeasure with how I was treated throughout the conference manifested itself in the final evaluation. I may have felt defeated yesterday, but my fighting spirit was back in full force today.

To the communications speaker, I wrote:

For a lecture on communication, INCREDIBLY ineffective - irrelevant, tangential, ignorant, unaware of individuals with certain needs. Myself or my fellow Vista could have done a better job.

To the overall staff who reminded me at every turn how they would not accommodate me remotely, with the exception of a few wonderful individuals:

I’ve never been made to feel so aware of my disability in my life. When I specified my needs, I was told various conflicting things, ignored, berated, and just plain treated rudely. I have always self-advocated for myself, and I just gave up after a while. I would have gotten much more from this training had there been more empathy and understanding. For an organization that claims to respect all, you’re sure fraught with hypocrisy. Thank you for attempting (and almost succeeding) in making me feel pointless.

I may not always feel kickass but when it comes to expressing my anger in words, you betcha I can get it going there. And on that note, I’m stepping down and passing out because I think my brain is addled with non-sleep and too much good food. Real posts to come soon.

I had to attend a seminar today on communications and marketing.

You know. Cause I’ve never done PR, marketing, or communication materials in my life. Or I’m not pursuing a master’s in something that requires all three of those things rather extensively. Nope. Complete novice. (In case you can”t tell, the sarcasm is dripping like ice cream on a cone on a sweltering day in July.)

Educate me! Enlighten me! And during group discussions? When there are 30 people talking at once? Trying to read all those lips and follow the discourse as it jumps around the room doesn’t give me brain freeze at all (hold the slushie.) So there are no pounding headaches - why would there be? That’s just ridiculous, ds. Stop making things up.

Also, my understanding of how communication works is severely limited. Because I can’t hear, therefore I can’t communicate, and I clearly know nothing about how communication works. I’m a novice there too. For example: Did you know communication is visual, verbal, and vocal? And actually, visual communication comprises 57% of how we understand one another? (Or in my case, 99%? And the other 1% is body language?)

I learned this as the speaker turned her back to me once again, spoke in a voice that was nowhere near as loud as it should be, and went on and on and on about how important communication was. You know. So I could clearly read her lips, understand her, and communicate effectively.

Later on, she told a story about being empowered and non-offensive.

Me: I’m empowered!

Not-Yram: Yes, but you’re offensive.

Me: Oh. Good point.

Other girl at our table that I only just met: I could be a total bitch right now and tell her that she’s sucking at communicating right now. Especially after you told her you’re deaf.

Me: I could too. But that requires caring.

Other girl at our table: I bet we could take her. But she scares me. She’s big. And she looks like she’s scrappy. The earrings’ll come off and we’ll go down.

Random guy at our table: Want me to take her down? I’d be happy to do it for you. I bet if the four of us rush her together, we could take her down. Then we could do all the other conference speakers too!

Me: See! We’re communicating! Effectively!

This conference is fraught with irony.

While browsing around, I found an article I wrote when I was nine. Fourteen years ago. I remember sitting in a hotel room with my dad in upstate New York, on our last family vacation before my parents divorced, patiently editing and revising and writing. Apparently, even when I couldn’t write well, I still strove to write. Shows how much of this is innate.

As I read through, I laughed at my younger self. Things that didn’t seem important to me then are now - isn’t that true of everyone? It just goes to show how much we can change. Then I thought, what would I say? Because the nine year old me has yet to see so much. In a post McGee wrote about time traveling, she asked what we would say to our past selves. I wrote, …honestly? There’s nothing I can think of that I would tell myself. Though I wouldn’t mind hearing from myself in five years and knowing where I am then. I never really thought much about the future - just knew it was out there. And someday it will be here.

I was such a pragmatic kid. *shakes head*

Looking back, however, while I can’t go back in time, it’s like a little piece of time caught up with me. So. From the twenty three year old me to the nine year old me. A little slice of the future. Welcome, darling. It’s been an interesting ride, and I gather it’s only going to continue being bumpy.

Hi! My name is DS. I am nine years old. I am hearing impaired. I wear hearing aids. My little sister is also hearing impaired. That is what this story is about.

Sweetheart. This is not a story. A story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Or some variation thereof. What you wrote? Is purely an article. I gather for your age, you were rather intelligent. Not that that’s remotely a surprise, given how intelligent and witty and charming we remain to this moment, but it may take you a few years and MANY creative writing classes to really understand what comprises a story.

When I was two and a half years old, I started to not hear what people were saying….my parents took me to many doctors before we found a doctor who discovered my problem - I was hearing impaired.

It seems so much more dramatic than it actually is. Or perhaps, I’m so used to being hearing impaired now that nothing fazes me. Years of conversations with our family have led to disputing theories. One side claims we had no hearing from birth on, while the other claims we spoke two languages until we were asked to try to only learn one after the initial loss. I’ll let you in on a secret: I fall in the latter camp.

I know we haven’t been exposed to many deaf people by this point, despite all the “networking events” our parents take us to, including those at the New York Aquarium in Brooklyn, but think of the ones we have met. Remember how their voices always sound more guttural? As though they’re only mimicking the shapes they see forming on the lips of others? We don’t do that, which indicates we must have heard at some point or another. Rational reasoning can be so fascinating, no? From this vantage, we were never born deaf. Which is what makes us and our current plight all the more interesting.

See, there’s going to come a time when things are going to change again. And they won’t know why. Just consider it part of what makes you so fascinating - because modern science will never truly be able to understand us. But promise me, on that May morning when you wake up, and everything sounds a little funny and a little off, and maybe the hearing aid isn’t working properly, be patient with Mom and our sister when they fight, drive her to her school before heading to ours. Don’t be afraid to leave AP Psych early - they’re watching Sybil, and when you can’t tell if she’s laughing or crying, and the actual visual betrays our ears, don’t be afraid to admit what you’ve been hiding all morning - something is wrong. It’s not the end of the world. And honestly? When you get to be me, you’ll look back and feel proud of ourselves in terms of how well we handled that, and everything else.

But I promise you, the term hearing impaired takes on a whole new meaning after that point.

I attend a public school, and most of the people treat me as if I’m not hearing impaired at all.

Pat yourself on the back, dearie. That’s a testament to who we are - I don’t know what it is, but we exude confidence and an “I-don’t-care” attitude that makes it hard for people to want to mess with us. Ask Dad what his favorite story about us is - in the library, when we were five. I promise you, you’re going to hear that story at least five times a year. Maybe less if you leave New York - I know you can’t imagine that now, since it’s all you know, but one day, you’ll learn there are leaps and boundaries outside of Brooklyn and Manhattan (and yes, even Queens).

Eep. Got off track there. No surprise there, is it? *grins* There’s always going to be dumb people who make stupid comments or fail to realize that having a hearing impairment does not equate having a lack of intelligence. If anything, it’s them - you don’t quite realize this yet, but you will. Just remember that, every time someone says something that makes you want to tear a nerve out of their cochlear and then see how they like it. Ah, but wait. That’d be putting them at a disadvantage, for then they’d truly be deaf and dumb. How about this? You’ve got another fourteen years to catch up - by then, you should devise a better punishment for all the ignorant idiots.

But sometimes, I do feel left out…only hard of hearing kids in the entire school…many people didn’t know what a hearing aid was, so they didn’t speak to me the way I needed to be talked to.

Ready for another secret? It has nothing to do with our hearing or lack thereof. It may seem lonely at times, but it’s mostly because we’re too independent to really follow the pack mentality that exists in elementary school. You’ll find out later how much respect it garners to be able to think independently when everyone else only seems to follow the rules. I know it’s a big burden for us, especially when we’re so young, but just think. There are so many books out there, clamoring to be read, friends to play games with, and dance lessons to be had. So there may be a day or two where you feel lonely - ultimately, we always have us. And that’s more important than anything else.

Sometimes certain people don’t ask me to do something that I want to do, so then, I ask them, and the girls say “no.” Then I feel as if I’m deaf instead of just hearing impaired. These girls also never face me so I can’t read their lips.

I can’t even begin to tell you how surreal it is to read that passage, knowing what’s transpired over the last fourteen years. Is it no wonder that one of those girls was Whitney? Things change. You’ll learn to become more active in taking charge of what you can hear. Someone saying something too softly? Tell them to speak up. Mumbling? Mock them until they figure out how to enunciate. It happens over time - don’t expect a change tomorrow - but don’t EVER be afraid to stand up and advocate for yourself.

My best friend understands me properly…she also has something to say: “I am sorry ds wears hearing aids, but I’m glad she goes to my school and is my best friend.”

Hahahaha. Wow. *shakes head* Where to even start?! Well, you should know by now we only wear one hearing aid. We accidentally-on-purpose flushed the other one down the toilet when we were seven. Two thousand dollars? Down the drain. Literally. While what our “best friend” said may mean a lot to us when we were nine, I look back and think, “Man. We have so much growing to do.” Our best friends now love us for who we are, aside from the hearing. You can’t possibly understand it now, but you’ll learn. Our identity isn’t about being deaf. It’s about being us, about being ds. And you know what? We’re totally awesome.

Plus we kick ass at so many things. (Look the word ass up - I don’t think you’ve come across that one yet - you may not till you’re eleven or twelve. But don’t use it until you’re about sixteen or seventeen because otherwise, you’re just a perverted nine year old, and you have alllll the time in the world to become perverted. I kinda am. Sorry.)

And also? As we grow older, our priorities change, and so do the people in our lives. Don’t be afraid to let go of people when it’s time. Don’t wait too long to brush off someone who isn’t right for us. I’m not saying you shouldn’t make the same mistakes I did - I made many, many mistakes, and I’m grateful for what I’ve learned from them. But perhaps you could tread a bit more lightly.

But most importantly of all? Don’t ever forget who we are or where we came from. There will be days where you need to strike out on your own, and you will. But ultimately, just know: I’ve come a hell of a long way since we were nine (hell - another word to look up, if you don’t already know that one. I don’t remember when that entered our lexicon - it wasn’t in Mr. Diener’s class, that’s for sure. Oh - and yes. He’s gay. Not that it makes a difference, but put the rumors to rest!). I’m proud of you for being so aware of yourself at such a young age. And guess what? Things will change soon. You won’t always have to be an adult. I promise you, there are a lot of happy moments ahead. And we’ve got one hell of an infectious smile.

Tips for when you meet a hearing impaired person: (because these still ring true, fourteen years later.)

• Face them when you speak
• Speak clearly
• If they don’t hear you, patiently repeat what you said. Don’t say, “Never Mind,” because then the hearing impaired person feels left out.