Mistakes

its amazing how everything is clear as day when you look back on it... the mistakes you have made, the pain you caused... the horror you feel. i am admitting, i have made so many mistakes. many of them so minor, forgetting to take the trash out, forgetting a homework assignment, little white lies. but the ones that cause me pain are the big ones, not seeming to respect the ones i love, not showing them the respect they deserve. lying to my friends, my family, my partner, and also myself. this time, learning to accept myself, it has more work, so much more work. i have more work to do, on myself and my relationships, because they are worth trying to save, trying to repair. i cant expect everyone around me to change for my benefit, but not change myself. i cant expect honesty if im not completely honest, i cant expect sanity if im not sane. there are so many days when i question my sanity, today is one of those days. i question my mental health, i question my intentions, my resolve, my faith, my life. i question if i am who i want to be, and when im not... why do i feel the need to just make it all appear that i am healthy and whole?
why do i need so many things, and yet i am unable to do them, unable to reciprocate, unable to enjoy, just unable? why do i let the world influence me in ways it shouldn't be able to? why do i fail at my goals... and seem to be ok with that?

why am i unable to explain, yes i am fine with being deaf, but what i miss most about having more (or some) db of hearing, is music... and how i need the music, how that is driving me to accept something i have never thought of accepting before. it isn’t the lack of sound, or the weird tickling on my ear drum with my hearing aids, but it is the lack of music. it is with my current levels of deafness, that are going no where but more profound, that music has no rhythm, no depth, it is just a garbled pot of noise... just as speech. that i can not accept... i have tried... and i just cant do it. i am so scared that by thinking about getting a cochlear implant, something i have said for years i would not do, because i am not broken, that i am going to be turning my back on my community. though i know that wont be the case... my mind, or my emotions, or my crazy self, is telling me that is the truth, that is what is happening, that is what my reality is... that thinking about it is a huge mistake, and doing it would be an even bigger one. but then i try, so desperately to listen to music, to have that connection i had before, that connection to something so much bigger than myself... and it just depresses me, even more. I have made so many mistakes, and I don’t want to make any more, I want to be an open and honest person, I want to be able to have the people that I love be open and honest with me. But am I able to do that while I do not accept myself fully for who I am, when I do not accept that although yes I am Deaf, and I know that I am not broken, and that I have a wonderful community to support me and to love me just for who I am... that I still want to hear music? That I may get a CI for that reason? Am I able to be open and honest with people without expressing that? Or is it lying by omission?

Am I able to be open and honest in my relationship without feeling I am less, or that I need to protect her for my insanity? Right now... no I am not... and I know that is my problem. I am not able to be open and honest, though I am working on it, just as she is working on accept me for the Deaf person that I am, that I will continue to be, instead of a broken hearing person. I have realized, so much in the last day, I need to be open and honest, because that is what I want for those around me, to be open and honest. I need to be able to show respect, especially to those I love, and I need to learn to respect myself, and my decisions, my thoughts, my desires. Just as I need to respect the people that I love, and show them that I respect them, in the words that I say, in the movement of my hands, in the words that I right, I also need to respect myself and acknowledge that yes, I am deaf, but I do desire to hear some. Though that is a scary thought for me, because I have worked so hard to accept myself as being deaf, I terribly miss music. So here I am, opening up... I am going for a CI evaluation on May 2nd. My hopes for the CI, that I can finally hear music, not only feel the base tones, but hear music. That I become less of a frustrated person when it comes to dealing with hearing people, that I never loose sight of my Deaf community, that I learn to become a more respectful person, that I learn to be open and honest with those that I love. I know many of these dreams have nothing to do with the CI itself, but I hope this admission, I hope it leads me towards my other dreams.

Someone Elses Language

Its something most people don’t think about… the language that you use every day, the language that you grew up learning… does that make it your own language? In my case, no it doesn’t. My language is a visual language, my language is American Sign Language, ASL, even though I was deprived of it growing up, it is still my language. The language I learned growing up, the language I was forced to use until I finally decided at the age of 17 that I was going to learn what was rightfully my language, was someone else’s language. It was the language of my parents, my siblings, my family, my neighbors, but it was never really my language.

It has always, and will always be foreign to me, the way the words form in your mouth, how the air coming out changes ever so slightly, the vibration in your throat changing, its intriguing, yes, but it is still foreign, alien, because I am Deaf. I cannot hear the language, I cannot form it “correctly” and yet, every so often, I can understand it. The language I was exposed to from birth is someone else’s language, but not mine. I remember growing up, and knowing that people were trying to talk to me, but not really understanding what talking meant… seeing peoples lips move, knowing they had a reason, a rhyme to them, but being left out of their circle, their private club. I wanted to speak like them, to make sounds come out of my lips, and have people understand them… it seemed so easy… for everyone else… but to me… the task seemed impossible. I remember starting speech therapy, thinking it was playtime, but soon got bored, because the lady moved her lips just like everyone else. I would sit with one hand on her throat, the other one mine, try to get them to be the same… but they never were. Soon, those afternoon meetings just made me tired, cranky and in desperate need of a nap. I hated going, I would cry and cry and cry, hoping it would get my mom to understand I didn’t want to go. What were worse then those speech therapy lessons, the trips to the men with no names… I wasn’t really sure what they did, what they were for, but I knew they would look in my ears, put these things on my head, and press buttons, and that I didn’t like it. I was never sure what I was supposed to be doing during those exams… but I remember hating them… though the exact details escape me.

One day, I was around 5, and in kindergarten, in the “special” class, because I had very little speech skills, I remember sitting at the table, watching my speech therapist… and she said something, and I understood what she meant… I said it back… wrong, but I tried. I finally began to recognize the word mom on her lips, something I could do with my sisters’ lips, and my own mom’s lips, but on someone else’s lips, that had never happened before. I started to make “progress” we used pictures to help me understand, but never any signs, only pictures.  Eventually I could speak so most people could understand me, even if it meant that I had to think hard about what I was going to say, and how to say it, and also meaning that I have missed half of what someone else was saying. I prided myself in this for a long time, because I could be understood, even if I couldn’t understand someone else.

Then the first day I was really exposed to my language is a day I will never forget. I was a senior in high school, had never been allowed to meet anyone who was like me. I finally decided I was going to take a class at the local community college in American Sign Language, something my parents desperately didn’t want for me, but I wanted to at least try it on and see if it fit. I knew I didn’t belong in the hearing world, but I also wasn’t sure if I belong in the Deaf world. I walked into class the first Monday, scared beyond belief. I knew I was going to be the only high school student in class, and I vowed I wouldn’t tell anyone I was still in High School, I still very much wanted to be accepted. I knew a few signs here and there, I could fingerspell, I knew some basic phrases, but I was far from a fluent communication, I was far from where I was with the English language. I walked into class, there were a few other students already there; they were outwardly excited and nervous, talking non-stop. I was invited into a group of 4 students, and I couldn’t keep up. I couldn’t understand what was going on, with all of them talking at once. So I went to my fall back plan, I smiled and nodded a lot. I noticed before anyone else, a man had walked in accompanied by a woman, and they were signing back and forth easily. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself, so I went back to my group’s conversation… continuing to smile and nod, while being completely lost.

Shortly after, the man who had walked in flashed the lights, every one started looking around, but I went and sat down in a seat directly in the middle of the single row of desks. I knew why he had flashed the flights, and it seemed I was the only one who appreciated it. The woman who had accompanied him was his interpreter; my teacher was Deaf! He introduced himself, and asked each of us to do the same. It was nearly impossible for me to catch anyone’s names in the class or any of the information given about them, because I couldn’t stand in front of them one by one while they spoke. So I watched the interpreters fingers dance, I was amazed. When it was my turn to speak, I wasn’t quite sure what I was suppose to say. I knew I needed to state my name, but other then that, I wasn’t quite sure. So I concentrated and said, “Hi my name is Ash”. Everyone was looking at me, expecting more, but I couldn’t give them the information that I didn’t know, I wasn’t sure what else I was suppose to divulge, people started to talk, and I became very embarrassed. The professor noticed right away what was going on, and instead of pointing me out, he just wrote the questions on the board. This had never happened to me before, no one had taken the time, without pointing out my hearing loss, to be sure that I understood. I was then able to answer the questions, people still looked at me funny, but we were all there to learn the same thing.

Though I knew the content of the first day, learning to finger spell our names, and introduce ourselves, I was never bored. On the contrary, I was entirely enamored with the idea of being able to communicate, not with my weakest sense, but with my hands and my eyes without missing out on sound. I had a distinct advantage in the class, I was already use to using my eyes to understand, or to try to understand, so my eyes didn’t get tired like the hearing students. We were learning to communicate, not talk, but to actually communicate, and I loved it. I was getting ready to leave the class that first night, when I noticed people were trying to talk to me, I turned around and asked them to repeat. They were asking me about my hearing aids, they were asking me about growing up, and why I chose now to learn ASL, they were genuinely curious, and not like many of the students in my High School, who were condescending about my deafness (though I heavily identified as hard of hearing, or a broken hearing person) but seemed to accept that I was a person just like them. The teacher also took me aside with his interpreter, and talked to me. He wanted to be sure that he hadn’t embarrassed me, he wanted to get to know me more, wanted to help me find my path into the world that should have been mine from the start. His wonderful interpreter had to interpret twice for us, being sure she said things in a manner that I could lipread, as well as interpreting his words, and my own. That first day, the day that changed my life for the better, the day I started the path to learn my language, this beautiful language without sound, but that dances to tell captivating stories.

After 5 years, I am still not fluent, but I have found my way home, to my language, my community, my people. I have been welcomed with open arms, and deeply loved. I have made wonderful friends, and I have learned so much more about myself in the process. I can express my thoughts and feelings without having to think so very hard to do so, without being criticized for the way my words come out, without having to wonder if I was using the correct words. I can also understand, not just a little bit, not just every few words and try and guess what people are trying to say, but actually understand. I am able to fully understand and appreciate my classes in school, the comedy of my friends, seeing my parents sign “I love you”. ASL has changed my life, my language, my life, my world.