Hearing Friends

Lunch-time. A group of about 12 friends chatting over sandwiches and drinks in the sunshine. Bubbly atmosphere. Smiles and laughs. Heads nodding eagerly. Everyone contributing, clicking into the loop with a comment as soon as there is a gap, then watching, waiting, listening for the next one. Fast moving roller-coaster chatting that makes everyone feel happy. All about connecting - hearing the words, and the subtle meanings behind the words so that we can share the inside story. Inclusive. That's what friends do, don't they? Make us feel that we belong.

But what if we don't connect? What if all that happy repartee is too fast, too noisy for us to decode? What if we can't click in because we don't know what to offer - haven't understood more than one word in five and probably misheard anyway? That was what happened to me at lunch-time yesterday. For well over an hour I nodded, and smiled when I felt it was right, and understood almost nothing. Connection close to zero. Big problem? Of course. From time to time I managed to chat with someone beside me who knows about my hearing loss and is kind enough to speak carefully. We connected well, but while he was concentrating on me he was out of the loop so we kept it short. Crossed my mind to leave, go somewhere else and read a magazine. But I didn't. And I'm very glad. Most of the time I was a willing spectator. And, do you know, I enjoyed it? Of course it would have been so much better to be on the inside track. But I felt I was among friends.  I knew that many of them knew that I wasn't deliberately ignoring them - and anyway they were too busy competing for space to notice who was in  and who was not. My enjoyment came from watching them, seeing how they were adding their personal bubble to the collective babble, watching them warm each other - eyes, heads, hands all moving energetically. Even if I couldn't decode what they were saying, I could feel their friendship, see their sense of fun and their need for each other which I could share. Out of the loop was not perfect, but so much better than withdrawing into some kind of sad solitude with apologies for my inability to be a full partner. It proved to me once again that hearing differently does not mean that we have to live differently. If we do our best to be normal, others will help us. And, if we have the courtesy to remind them that we are different, they will respect us, even thank us for helping them to understand.

Should we talk more about hearing loss? Yes we should. Loud and clear. There is nothing to lose and a whole lot to gain. Let's not hide it. Let's share it instead.

copyright John Marshall Mills 2007

|  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this