It’s here – the time of year that amplifies all the biggest challenges for those of us with hearing loss.
Music that we love but can no longer hear or enjoy the way we used to.
Lots of people gathered in one place: no matter how few or how many, it’s a crowd. And crowds are noisy and indecipherable. The are also incredibly isolating, when we can’t find our place in the babble of conversations, or understand what that one person, right there in front of us, is saying. And seriously? We can’t even hear ourselves.
Family dinners that swell in size with children of all ages (including our adult offspring), siblings, parents, friends and that person who would otherwise be on their own. And who has a 12-seater round dining table which would enable better speechreading, or at least allow us to identify who’s speaking so we know whom to address our pardon, what did you say?
Noise. And more noise. At home, at social events, at places of worship. Noise layered upon noise until you can’t tell if it’s inside or outside your head.
Emotions. The feelings, good or bad, that rise from remembrance of holidays past. The joy of being with people we haven’t seen in a long time. The bitter bliss of hearing holiday music: bliss because this evocative, beautiful music has existed throughout our life – and bitter because it doesn’t reach us in the same way anymore.
And then, the emotions sparked by these wonderful people who, once again and eternally, forget about our needs. They’re not ignoring us, they are merely oblivious, here and now in this chaotic get-together, to our communication needs.
How many times do I have to remind them? How difficult is it to remember that my hearing loss isn’t an on again-off again thing. Hearing loss is my constant state of being!
If you’re like me, you approach the holiday season with excitement and braced shoulders as you ready yourself to deal with it. Christmas (or your personal observance) seems never the same as it was when I was younger, or even when my son was a child. Our family is much larger now, and we live in a different part of the country, so many of the old traditions are just memories. I’ve had to adapt, as the mother/stepmother/mother-in-law who no longer controls the holiday narrative. I’m working on that.
But one thing that hasn’t changed is my need for help in staying connected, and the rush of emotion when that becomes difficult. My family now includes grandchildren who play out Christmas with traditional hyper-energetic excitement, laughs and tears and games and running into each other. I wish I could extract their individual voices to understand what they’re saying, but what child wants to be pulled aside from the fun by their grandmother to repeat something they’ve probably already forgotten?
To survive this time of year, in recent years I’ve learned to:
- Stream holiday music to my hearing aid/cochlear implant from my phone or computer.
- Either avoid the big parties, which these days are more than eight people or maneuver them as best as I can.
- Engage with the little ones in quieter times and places, rather than when they’re insane with excitement.
- Choose the best person to sit beside at the holiday table; for me, that’s usually the Hearing Husband or the Hearing Son. They are honor-bound to repeat things to me, upon demand.
- Take care of myself. When it all becomes too much, too noisy or simply too stressful or unsatisfying, I retreat to a quieter place and stay there. But until that point, I enjoy the food, the chatter, the wine and most of all, the people.
Because it’s that time of year again.
