Connections

After an afternoon reconnecting with an old friend I have been inspired to create this blog. This friend is 3 decades older than me, yet I often feel like I share a deeper connection with her than those within my own cohort. As the title of this blog and this entry might suggest, we both have a hearing loss. Among the miriad frustrations we discussed today; captionists/court reporters, movies, socializing, accents, transportation, dating, family and more. I realize that each individual's hearing loss journey is different, and that there are plenty of very compassionate, understanding people with "normal" hearing. However, there are certain things that only another hard of hearing friend can truly understand, whether they were born deaf, lost their hearing as they got older, developed a hearing problem due to a certain disease or illness, or were simply exposed to too much noise. Along those lines, there are also things I don't expect a 54 year old woman to understand completely about my generation, whether she's on facebook or not. So this shall be a place for me to rant about my experiences, observations, musings, and frustrations as a young adult with hearing loss. I hope there are some who read and can relate whether they be 20 or 60, whether they refer to themselves as hard of hearing, hearing impaired, deaf, Deaf, or are simply a close "normal hearing" friend or loved one of someone who does. So here goes my first post on this new blog. The second shall be a reposting of a story I've already shared via facebook. It relates to a recent trip I took to Dublin and London and the way I decided to face certain social challenges whilst on my trip abroad.