I sleep a lot.
When I was in Philly, I stayed with my friends in Chestnut Hill. Their 5 year old Jack thought something was wrong with me because he had to pry me out of bed in the morning. “Is it because California has a different time zone?” he asked me.
He’s pretty smart.
It’s kind of always made me feel ashamed how much I like to sleep. How much I need sleep. Busy people, successful people, (at least the ones I know), do not take marathon naps like I do.
It dawned on me lately why I require so much. Why I get so tired.
I work hard.
Yea, yea, we all work hard.
I work hard in a different way. I realized in the last few days, as my hearing has gotten much worse for whatever reason, that I have been wanting to hibernate more than usual. I have been avoiding the phone.
The reason?
It’s too much damn work.
I have to struggle to hear and keep up and make sense of what’s going on.
No, I am not fully deaf.
My hearing is distorted and I have tinnitus. I hear sound but I cannot make out what that sound is, for the life of me.
Imagine talking underwater. Imagine someone talking with a sock over their mouth.
I cannot watch tv without subtitles. I cannot hear what you say unless I look at your mouth.
It gets old. It gets boring. I get very tired of having to tell people. I get really over myself at making bad jokes about it.
I get scared that it will get worse and worse.
I try not to get scared that it will get worse and worse.
(The truth is, any worse and I will be 100% deaf.)
So I go to sleep.
It is exhausting putting forth so much energy simply to hear someone tell you their name.
So I sit here and watch The Bourne Identity with the sound turned down because I actually find it soothing, and, like good company, it doesn’t have to say a lot, just knowing it’s here is enough. Plus I have seen it 17 times.
More than anything it frustrates me. I want to hear, I work hard to hear, but frankly, whether I work hard or not, it doesn’t make a difference. It just makes me exhausted.
I am going to work less.
I accept that I cannot hear perfectly and if I miss a thing or two, well, then I miss a thing or two.
The energy I exert to be part of the world is taking it’s toll on me and whether my ears can hear it or not, I am in fact very much part of the world.
It’s taken me quite some time to understand my fatigue.
Why my friends can go and go and teach 4 yoga classes and keep going and why I need to crawl in bed and pass out? What stuff am I made of? Yikes, how am I going to be a mother if I have to rest so often?
Well, the fact of the matter is: I will have to work less in the irony of all ironies.
I must lessen the struggle. Practice radical acceptance that the things I am meant to hear will be revealed to me even if someone has to pass me a note like we are in 8th grade or text me. I have to stop pretending that I can hear and then spend 5 minutes replaying the sounds in my brain so I can make sense of them.
And if I need to sleep a little more to be the best teacher I can be, then so be it.
Now Indiana Jones is on. Still on mute. I have seen this one many times, as well.
I guess the reality is, that my life, much like these films I can watch and enjoy on silent mode, can be enjoyed without so much noise. I can probably sit back and relax a little more because whether I admit or not, I probably know what is going on. I have to trust a little more and maybe just get a really good translator.
My own born identity is that of a healer.
The older I get and the longer I have had to deal with this hearing loss the closer I get to fulfilling my destiny. I am an empath. I am a healer.
I do believe this is largely due to my struggles with hearing. It has allowed me to fine tune my other senses and become highly aware of what it means to be human.
Does it suck sometimes? Yes.
Do I feel really tired a lot because I spend 90% of the time trying to figure out what the f*ck you just said? Yes.
Do I miss jokes? Yes.
Do I miss what the yoga teacher says? Yes.
Am I happy? Yes.
Am I grateful yes?
Am I love? Yes.
That’s what it is. I trade a bit of fatigue and some struggle and some deafness for a pretty awesome life and a heightened sense of compassion.
I’ll deal with it.
Just please don’t whisper, talk to me while upside down or while in another room.
In turn, I will give up the fight and realize that when I really really need to hear you, I will.
I will find a way to hear and the things I don’t, well, my guess is that they weren’t meant for me anyway.
Just a hunch.