Waiting for a table in a noisy restaurant, surrounded by friends and family.

This post is long overdue, and I blame it on the unexpected side effects of new hearing.

To recap:  In the old days, no matter how badly I wanted to socialize or participate in the activities I cared about, I simply could not hear well enough to keep up.  I applied myself again and again, but even if I heard scraps of conversation or bits of meetings, I never got the punch line or the point because for some universal reason it was always delivered in a different tone/pitch/volume/direction.  Eventually, the cost—in energy—of forcing comprehension was insupportable and I had to stop doing the things that fulfilled me.  No more lectures, meetings, or responsibilities that involved communication.  No noisy restaurants or small talk—or people.  I lived in fear of my disability.

But then I got my cochlear implant, and shortly after activation I found myself—sometimes—getting the joke.  Given favorable acoustics, I even bantered and took pleasure in small talk.  This is not to say my hearing became perfect.  I still have trouble in noisy places, seek a front row seat, and ask for captions.  (And I once got in over my head in a hotel ballroom with a microphone and a podium and 105 witnesses).  But believe me when I say my hearing is nothing like before.  My husband says: It’s a completely different world.

As a result of my CI, the vast amount of energy I once spent on comprehension, overloading my cognitive function to the extent of bankrupting my future sanity, is now freed up.  The vast amount of energy I once spent on fear is now freed up.

I have excess energy.

Which brings me to why I’m so late with this post:  About five months after my activation, (fearless and full of new energy), I did something I hadn’t done in years, I attended a meeting for people who wanted to volunteer for a job.  Most people sit on their hands, look the other way—or pretend they are deaf—when it comes to signing up for volunteer jobs.  But after so much isolation, I was feeling a strong desire to reach out, raise my hand, and say YES.  And it didn’t stop there; I reached out, saying YES to friends, lectures, concerts, meetings, big jobs and little jobs, cocktail parties, restaurants, and an entire new Dallas literary scene that had blossomed while I was gone.  I gorged on participation and connection.

I don’t want to get carried away here, but the sheer joy of rejoining my world where I am able do the things that fulfill me, is what I imagine breaking free of a kidnapper would feel like, or dodging the Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come, or rising from the dead.

And here’s the bottom line:  I’m too busy to think about my hearing that way anymore.  Except to remind myself that I must sit down and write this blog and bear witness to how the CI has transformed what I do every day of my life.