Tag: hearing

Humanity

so many things.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

I just finished a therapy session, and haven’t had one in quite a while, so there was a lot to go through and I did all the talking, believe you me.

  1. my kid is a senior, and there is slow and steady shift in dynamics, beginning deep in my insides, about how to let go of control of the lives of my children. and clearly, there are still two that i will devastatingly control, but having a kid lean into adulthood is really something.
  2. I have this before-school school job that is really pushing me in terms of my hearing. I’ve gone and had an appointment with a doctor in boston who does cochlear implants to see if i can improve my hearing, because it sucks to miss so much when its kids. With adults I can get things repeated but kids often think they’ve done something wrong if you ask them to repeat themselves and the original impulse is lost. (Sidebar, today boy B was upset because his boogers were wet. I caught that one.) Generally though, I feel upset a little most days. I also have to be there at 7. Have I mentioned that? So early. So early. I do not enjoy.
  3. music is back and around again. I’m talking Wil Varley, Alexi Murdoch, the Cure. You dig? I’m enjoying.

4. I’m still outside and at work, and I still love it. Its hard and fairly gross at times but when I think about the most beautiful place in the world, it involves me standing empty-handed outside the coop, looking up at the sky. I wonder if my farmer knows that? I bet she does.
5. I’m still at a loss how to handle the many changes that are settling in on me here, changing familes, changing realities of finances, ears maybe, and love and tidbits of change in all the ways. the one thing i’ve let go of for these next few months is planning. I’m just going to ride the waters, whether it be wavy or calm, I’m just along for the float. Will see which shore we wash up on, I guess.
6. I’m not writing nearly enough. Not here, not anywhere. And I feel it. But today I have lunch with Robert, my writing partner, and that’ll be cool. He’s moving in May to be with a long-distance love affair. Can you believe things like that still happen? I am astonished. Perhaps I am too careful, practical. Someone make those into romantic things… Hmm.

Thats it, just checking in here.

Love you guys,

Kate

Humanity

under construction

Lovelovemotherexpletive

What are you doing to improve yourself? I am betwixt and between on this one, because I’m still actively ‘raising’ kids and I am trying to teach THEM to strive to be better, etc. and God knows, the world needs work too. What am I doing to leave things better than i found them? It’s a query, an active search for justification of myself, in my entirety.

There’s something common in it, like all the ‘wellness’ crap, love yourself first. Secure your own oxygen. It’s true, yes, and I don’t fight against it. I guess I start by noticing, right? Noticing where we stretch thin, where we are disappointed by ourselves.

For one, I’ve been highly reactive with the kids lately. My reaction time to kid-squabble-teen-bitchery is unbeatable. There is nothing faster, literally. My mouth and mother-hat are tilting wildly at windmills. At speed, mind you, which does not mesh well with health and wellness.

I need to slow down. Take a breath, ask a question, maybe ignore something. Ignoring things is a highly underestimated parenting tool. Says I, the deaf one, who inadvertently ignores a lot. Though, to be true, its not technically ignoring, if I have no idea what is going on.

Which brings me to stretchy spot number two: I had an experience this week where I was trying to explain my hearing to someone who was irritated by it. I mean. . . it wasn’t even a kid. but whatever. I had to explain how deeply exhausting it is to listen to someone with my whole entire body. Sometimes I need to stop staring at their lips, because I just can’t handle it. I look away, but it doesn’t mean that my one good ear isn’t still functioning. They were getting mad that I wasn’t ‘listening’. Insert eyeroll here, an infuriated one.

Its resolved, for me, because I talked about it. I don’t think anything will change about their irritation level. but again, whatever. Its that little improvement, for me, pride in standing up for myself, taking the space and the time to talk rather than shrink into my ‘failures’. Remembering how much work I’ve done.

Go KATE!!

Building up over here, building up.

photo of people on building under construction
Photo by Igor Starkov on Pexels.com

Humanity

I’m taking a class.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

Amidst the hellacious mess that there is in the basement and my finances, I am taking a class on Powerful Questions. And, amazingly, it has to do with listening.

Its a class that is held over the phone and I’m flatout exhausted at the end of the hour, listening so hard, translating those bits I can’t make out into bits that make sense. I just finished an hour now and my ear muscles are sore, yes they are, don’t argue with me . . . and neck and face, where i was holding the phone, so tight, so tight. usually i wear gigantic headphones, bigger than my face, but today i was too distracted to find them in time, and so i squished that fucker phone right into my brain.

its exhausting. and then kid #2 walks in the house and wants a ride hitherandfro. and if i had a partner, i would just lean on them in quietude for a little bit.

but instead i have a sweet five minutes before i start yelling/begging about ‘when? when do you need a ride? tell me when and i will take you!’ because i’m trying to beat the bus for kid three back to the house. His inability to match my speed and ferocity is legendary.

these are not the questions that the class is teaching.

I’m finding it really interesting actually.

how you formulate a question to someone can really open a door.

What do you want to happen instead? (get dreamy on your bad self, man, get dreamy…)

Is there anything else you can tell me about that? (get detailed, put those details in your dream, your story…)

What is something you can do in the next few hours to get that feeling?

I’m digging it. Its all about activating the different ways you can listen, so it feels especially ironic to me, the deafie. exhaustion and enjoyment. isn’t that a hoot.

yeah. i said hoot.

-love love,

me.

attentive eagle owl sitting on tree branch
Gorgeous Hoot. Photo by Mehmet Turgut Kirkgoz on Pexels.com
Humanity

Feather me February

Lovelovemotherexpletive

part two.

i’m an introvert. yes. what this means for me is that i can’t do small talk very well. i end up clamming up sooner than most people can understand. not because i hate you, just because i’m out of words. if you want me to ask a relative stranger something incredibly invasive but thought-filled, i can do that, and i’m comfortable with that. i hate skimming the surface, and i love the depths.

now add in my hearing loss? and i’m an absolute winner at social engagement. the poor people i am involved with. i can feel intimately connected to women who have children that I know and they may not know my name. but i know them, because i’ve watched how they speak to their kids, how their kids expect the world to be, how they are when they are sitting quietly watching a baseball game. Because I can’t hear much, my observation skills are HIGH, mammajammas. HIGH. Doesn’t mean I can’t be fooled, but they are HIGH.

so here i come to what makes up part two, which is connected to part one.

I can get dreamy. I can spend lots and lots of time in quietude, even in a crowd. I watch, and live on the outside of things fairly often.

I can also feel invisible sometimes.

And since I have had relationships like that, where i was actually invisible, it is something I worry about. I get too wrapped up in what other people need and want. I need to be sure that my role in my own life is the primary one. How do I acknowledge that without feeling selfish? Even typing it, I am imagining the moms and women around me judging me.

and the moms and women around me are better than that.

but this is the thing, the tether ball pole standing awkwardly next to the tennis courts. If I am likely to disappear into my own world, my own mind, how can I keep from disappearing in real life? How can I stop feeling temporary? How can I make myself stay?

a feather, to be tethered.

sigh.

-me

gray shiny feathers on black background
Photo by Takeshi Arai on Pexels.com
Humanity

WELL, JANUARY STEPS IN IT.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

My dog ate my hearing aide.

So.

what this means for me is that i make a phone call to an office where hopefully they will have the supplies to give me another one. which will cost two thousand dollars. one hearing aide. just one. no insurance for regular people covers it. or, at least not this regular person’s insurance.

what this means for me is that i walk around this empty house, but i feel like i have no legs. its super quiet, of course, but i have a level of -its not quite fear- but awareness that i might not be hearing something that i need to hear- like a tree hitting the house, or a phone ringing. pre-emptive anxiety? awareness of not-safe? quiet is not the same as peaceful. thankfully, kind of, the kids aren’t here, so i can have my extremely controlled panic in private. if they were here, though, i’d have less anxiety as they’d hear the breaking glass of an intruder or a tree hitting the house.

(yes, i’m absurd, but yes, also, those are real thoughts i have)

so. sigh. and fuck.

i was needing to do a big shop at the grocery store but its hard enough hearing with all the masks and stuff. people are frucking nuts right now and i can’t handle it right now. maybe i’ll get a new aide real quick like? i have savings and a credit card so i’m okay. (i say to my sister who is, right now, jumping into action to save me..:)

i’m lucky. i know it.

its so quiet. come hold my hand and distract me.

i’m waiting for a phone call that i may or may not hear.

its super fun.

-meh.

love love anyways,

me