Growing Old.

I have been dealing with growing older for the first time in my life.  Not wiser mind you, just older.  I am now at the age where people turn to me for advice and I find myself worried about things I say. 

I think in a way we become younger in our growing older.  It is a time of "Firsts" again.  We are like a toddler exploring a new land and frontier and no one speaks our language.  Hair grows in new places, joints and muscles don’t move the way we expect.  Our sight and hearing are diminishing and our memories , well, they are vivid, yet not always accurate as they were in years past.

We finally get the bravery to try new things only to realize our bodies won't allow the physicality to complete our new found courage.  I have grown old.  Not because my body is giving up, but because I have.  I have forgotten how to look at things like they are new.  I dwell on the negative aspects of this season of life. 

    One of the reasons for this negativity is the loss of lifetime friends and other friends going on to meet their maker.  These were risk takers and adventurers' to me.  Now when I get an ache or pain I worry…is this my last day, is this the pain that takes me down?  Later I will burp or cough and it goes away and I laugh at my silliness but still hang on to the fear.    That is the key word now, my friends death have taught me to fear.  I have been fearless for years and believed myself invulnerable to  growing old.  I was Peter Pan.  I want to be fearless again.  I want to believe in making the impossible improvable, but not impossible.  I am still an optimist in so many ways, but not like I was.  I teach young children starting their lives, I live for their energy and enthusiasm.  It gives me strength.  In them I hear the voice of God that used to speak to me directly.  I do not ignore God or his talking to me I am not sure I listen as closely. 

Each week brings a renewal of work where I push to reboot my optimism.  I pray and ask God for help.  I am never unhappy with his answer, though I am in conflict with my thought.  Part of me lives in this depression and another part of me lives in this hope.  I bounce from one to the other like a toy ball slammed into the concrete.  I rise to new heights but come crashing down within minutes only to pick myself up again and rise even higher.  The lows scrape me and beat me up and try to keep me down.  The highs sing with all the glory of looking to the future and pushing away  the clouds.  I reach for the sunshine, I reach for family, I reach for friends…I have become needy.  I want to be more than my existence.  Yet some days I feel like all I am doing is existing.  Where is my wonder, my creativity, my adventurer, my lust and love for life?  Is it buried in a depression or just shuffled aside while I remake who I am?  Change, a necessary thing in our lives...just wish I had more control over it.

~Curtain~

You're whispering to a deaf man. Originally pub. 8/21/2008

by Kenneth McDade on Thursday, August 21, 2008 at 10:23am

I am in my own little world today, not by choice but due to the fact that I left my hearing aids at home. I have had a hereditary hearing loss for several years and wasn't really aware of how bad it had become until this morning.

Thursday mornings I have to get up earlier and rush to work to get on the phone and attend a phone meeting that has nothing to do with me. Great motivation to get there. I like to be on time though and it rushes me because I am also a fan of sleep. Woke up later than I intended to and rushed to work forgetting both of my hearing aids and not even being aware of it. Usually, I don’t come in contact with anyone until after eight o'clock. I enjoy not listening to anything in my car, so I didn’t have the radio on. It wasn't until some Neanderthal tried to plow into the back of me and then run me off the road that I realized I had forgotten the hearing aids. The driver was yelling things at me and I could not understand what he was saying. Judging by his driving, it could be his intelligence level didn't allow for real tangible communication or it could just be that his dad is a bachelor, I am not sure. However, I was suddenly aware that I had no real ability to hear most things today. Now, I am not deaf, but I do have a major hearing loss of about 75% in my left ear and 30% loss in my right ear. It makes everyone sound like they are talking to me from another room.

When if first occurred it was like people were making up words or saying something you know makes no sense, but it is what you heard...i.e. Would you like to shave the car under the TV, on the way to the laundry? Makes no sense, but made me laugh at things I would hear. In this stage, there is a little translator in your head that works like the text on your cell and predicts what it thinks might have been said. This is good to an extent, because you don't answer right away and most people will answer their own questions once they have said it out loud and makes you a great listener and wise in your counsel.

The next stage is losing some sounds all together, not volume necessarily, but sound. In this stage everyone sounds like they are mumbling or they are the parents in a Charlie Brown movie (wa, wa, waaa, wa.). This too can be funny but also aggravating.

Most people don't really talk to you, they talk, but they are looking in other directions or working on something else, you know...multi tasking. Even with the hearing aids, I have to have people face me and speak clearly, if not they and I both get frustrated and aggravated. To say, "never mind" to someone who can't hear you is to say you are giving up on them and they are not worth your time to repeat what you have just said.

Sounds in general get moved around to. I can no longer tell direction of sounds unless I can see it. People sneak up behind me all the time and I never hear them until they speak up or until I see them. This can make for some nerve racking experiences. The hearing aids are supposed to amplify sound, but they do not filter it. Everything comes in through them. You are suddenly aware of air conditioning units, fans, motors, and people clicking pen caps, all noise at once and nothing to block out the bad. People tend to get louder at this point but it will not help, just look at the person and speak clear. That seems to be my running theme.

I was at a concert once with a group of friends, one of them kept leaning in to speak into my ears, and got mad at me when I made them face me and just mouth it. Students would come up to me during tests and say something softly to not disturb the others. That is when I would stage whisper loudly to them, "You're whispering to a deaf man!"