Learning to Live

I was leaving Circle K, filling up on gas station food at 11pm just because it's only a three-minute walk from my summer dorm room. After paying for my Mt. Dew and Hot Pockets (a college student's dinner if I've ever eaten one) I picked up my things and headed for the door. It wasn't until I had started to step out into the mild night air that I heard the cashier say in a loud voice, "Do you want your receipt?" It was obviously the second time he had said it, but the first I had heard it.

As I politely declined his offer, I turned away and left the store feeling like I had been rude. I really didn't hear him the first time, but for all he knew I was just another ungrateful customer. It was on the short walk back that I realized for the first time: for all intents and purposes, I've been hearing impaired my entire life.

How many situations like this have happened that have gone unnoticed by me? I try not to let my disability ever become an issue; it's just a medically-certified card that I have to keep in my wallet. Unfortunately, not being able to hear very well comes up more in everyday life more than you'd think.

These thoughts took up the first minute of my walk back.

Crossing the street back onto campus, I started to realize that maybe my passion for writing has deeper roots than I thought. Maybe even since I was a child, turning the right side of my head towards the TV just so I could hear it, I valued the written word over the audible simply because I could understand it better. Maybe the reason I abuse the art of the secret handshake and overdo high fives is because physical communication is so much easier for me than verbal.

Two minutes.

It's hard not to think about what kind of effects this will have on my career in the long run. Who wants to hire a hearing-impaired journalist. This might be something I should abstain from headlining my resume. Then again, I was hired to work at a radio station when the person in charge of hiring know full well of my special situation.

I made it back to my dorm, threw my Hot Pockets in the microwave and turned ESPN on. Darn Closed Captioning on live shows is never very good. The words finally scroll onto the screen a good ten seconds after they've passed their usefulness. Try it sometime. Fine, I'll just turn the volume up a little bit. I smiled as I turned the volume bar to an even number. OCD. Not a disability. More of a quirk.

It was nice and quiet, except for the suits on the screen talking about the top plays of the day. I enjoyed it. Being able to focus my hearing on one thing is key for my coherence. Just a few hours earlier I had been in a crowded dining hall, but I felt completely alone because there were so many loud conversations going on, and I couldn't understand one of them.

I'm still learning to deal with my disability. I've only been fully aware of it for a couple years now; it's a process. But rest assured, I'll figure it out. And I'll be a better person for it. It will get to the point where I'll go through every day, and no one will even wonder if there's anything wrong with me. Why? Not because I'm going to have more surgeries to fix it. Not because I'm going to use a hearing aid as a Band-Aid. But for no other reason than I have to learn.