Please don't tell me it's not important

I searched the airline employee's face in frustration. She had just made an announcement about my flight. At least I think she did. I heard "12 minutes" but that was about it; her mouth was obscured by the loudpseaker she was using to get her point across. I couldn't read her lips and I didn't understand what she was saying. I stole a quick glance around and noted that none of the other passengers waiting at the gate seemed alarmed by her message, so I was assured that there was no cause for concern.

But still. I had to solve the mystery of the 12 minutes because I like to know things. I'm nosy like that. So I asked the person next me. I explained that I was hard of hearing but I didn't catch the announcement. Could he please tell me what it said? He was kind to oblige me and as it turned out, we would be leaving in 12 minutes (I know, riveting solution, you can rest easy now). But then he said, "It wasn't anything important."

I smiled and thanked him but inwardly, I was groaning. It may not have been important to you, I grumbled on the inside, but it might have been to me!

I know, I know. In the grand scheme of things, no, it wasn't that important. I could have easily deduced what the 12 minutes were about and knowing that there wasn't an emergency, I could have boarded the plane in peace. And it's very likely that the gentleman who told me it wasn't important was just trying to assure me that there wasn't anything crazy going on.

Growing up, though, "It's not important" were three difficult words to swallow. "What did he say?" I'd ask a friend, because I so desperately wanted to know what everyone else knew, to fit in, to belong. "It's not important," was a common reply, because it would have taken too long to repeat, maybe. Or it was too complicated to explain. Maybe it really wasn't important.

The thing is, though, we don't get to decide what information matters to someone else. We can't assume that because we find one piece of information useless that someone else will feel the same way about it. We don't know what's going on in someone else's life or plans or day - maybe they really do need that information, however inconsequential it seems to us. It's kind of like a detective show... we've probably all seen an episode of CSI/Law and Order/NYPD Blue/(insert favorite cop show here) where a rookie cop overlooks an important piece of evidence that would have sent the bad guy right to jail. He didn't speak up because he thought it didn't matter, but if he had just passed his information on, the case would have closed long ago.

Are you with me? When it comes to hearing loss, those of you who can hear would be doing those of us who cannot a huge favor if you just pass the information on and let us decide for ourselves how to use it. When others decide whether something is important or not, sometimes I feel as if they're really saying that I'm not intelligent enough to make my own decisions - and that is harder to deal with than the hearing loss itself.

There and back again

Soooooooooo..... apparently I was making things up when I said I was done with this blog.

Oops.

These are the facts of the case (and they are undisputed. (Not really, but name that movie!)):

Hearing loss is always on my mind. Might as well write about it.

I stopped blogging here in January. Yet this blog still gets hits and my stats tell me that people want to know about "how to live with hearing loss," "hearing aids" and "captions."

I went to Washington, D.C. last week for the Hearing Loss Association of America's national convention. Maybe someday, I'll blog about my experience but one of the things I came away with is that there is still work to be done. I met a couple of people who are affiliated with the Ida Institute, which aims to help audiologists better understand the psychological and social impact of hearing loss. This reminded me the importance of educating others about hearing loss - not just the medical aspect of it, but how it affects relationships, communication and emotional health. There were also several hearing spouses or family members at the convention - even those who do not personally live with hearing loss probably know someone who does. Hearing loss affects everyone.

Another thought I took away from the convention was the importance of staying connected. I was starting to build relationships in the online hearing loss community and sadly, I did not do a good job of maintaining those when I switched blogs. I'd like to get back into that again.

Finally, my personal burden is for churches to be accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing, so I will probably be writing a lot about that as well. This is not code for, "I'm going to convert you" or "Expect a lot of fire-and-brimstone speeches." I'm simply interested in figuring out how church can be accessible to everyone, including those of us with hearing loss. I imagine that many of the questions I wrestle with or issues that crop up won't be that different from trying to, say, procure CART for a college class or ask your boss for an amplified phone at work. So even if you're not the church-going type, I hope we can still find some common ground as we consider what it's like to be hard of hearing in a hearing world.

So long, farewell...

Happy New Year, friends!

Like I said, the new year brings a new blog for me.

Before we move to the new place, I just wanted to say thanks. Sometimes blogging makes me feel vain - or at least I worry that other people will think I'm vain! ;) But the thing is that just like an artist creates something for other people to enjoy, so a writer writes for other people to read. So thank you for reading... I truly appreciate it.

Hope to see you on the other side! You can now find me at...

To Live Quietly


... auf Wiedersehen, adieu!

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Happy New Year's Eve, friends! What are you doing today? I have a stack of movies a mile high. It is going to be glorious. Also, I figured out how to make my own cherry limeades, so Jesus can come back now. My life is complete.

Oh guess what, guess what, guess what??? Big changes are a-brewin' for this here blog. And by changes, I mean... I STARTED A NEW BLOG. BOO-YAH. I did this because, well, I kind of painted myself into a corner with my blog title, didn't I? I feel like I have to always write about hearing loss and while I'm always happy to share my experiences or think out loud about some issue related to it, it gets old, y'know? Well, not old, I guess, but considering I want to be a more deliberate blogger and at least aim for writing 3x/week, I think it would get old.

So I've made a broader blog. No painted corners this time. Just a place where I can blather incessantly about that one time I did something with someone somewhere or how I'm pretending to be Martha Stewart. It will be grand.

What this means is:

I will leave this blog up, but I won't be writing in it anymore. I hope it's been a good place for people new to hearing loss to learn a little bit more about what it means to be hard of hearing. That was the goal when I started anyway. To share a little bit more of my perspective with my friends and family and also to network with people who also live with hearing loss (either themselves or through a loved one).

I really would love to see you at my new place, so if you're so inclined, you'll need to update your subscriptions (if you subscribe) and following and google reading and bookmarking and all that jazz.

I will post the new link tomorrow so check back for updates!

Happy New Year's Eve, my friends. I hope it is a delightful day for each and every one of you!

Whirled peas

I did approximately 8.26 billion hours of shopping last week. Which is quite the feat coming from someone who considers ONE measly hour of shopping to be one hour too many.

I'm a serious shopper. When I do venture out to spend money, I treat it like a marathon. I mentally map out the most effect route to take through the store - the one that gets me in and out and back home in my pj's in the shortest amount of time possible.

But of course, other people do not know this. And they dawdle. And their kids dawdle. And they use their shopping carts to block whole aisles. They linger awkwardly in that one section out of the whole entire store that I need to grab something from.

Rude.

You know what is missing from America's stores?



Walkways. Walkways are the answer. Forget airports. Put these babies into Targets across the nation and you will achieve world peace. Slow people can jump on them if they want, but as long as they keep to the right so I can breeze past them, there will be peace in all the land.

And also? I love walkways. It's true. I went to Las Vegas this fall to visit my cousin. One of my favorite parts was hopping on the walkway in the airport. Because the Las Vegas airport looks like this:



I had to walk something like 15 miles to get from my gate to the baggage claim. Those walkways sure came in handy.

In contrast, my airport looks more like this:



If you land at my airport and if for some bizarre reason, it's your final destination, then I can guarantee you that when you leave your gate, your baggage claim will be right around the corner. No walkways. It's a sad airport.

I don't really know how I got on this topic. My thought process is a little convoluted. Also, on Christmas Eve, I dreamed that I lived next door to a vampire. But then I also spent Christmas Day curled up in my dad's big chair, getting high on cough suppressant and ibuprofen. I also watched Eclipse last night. I don't think I can blame that one on a cold.

I think coming up with an ending is one of the most awkward parts of writing. Especially blogging.

Love,
Lucy

The best way to spread Christmas cheer...

... or, How Many Pop Culture Christmas References Can I Make In One Post?

Am I the only one not really feeling the holiday spirit this year? Maybe my heart is two sizes too small.



Perhaps I'm a cotton-headed ninny-muuggins.



Or maybe because my Christmas tree - if you really want to call it that - looks more like Charlie Brown's



than Martha Stewart's



(not that I've ever had a tree that looked like Martha's, but... well, let me have my dreams). Or the fact that I've left most of my Christmas decor in boxes because it just seems like too much trouble to decorate my tiny little apartment. And yes, I know that Christmas is about more than trees and presents and decorations. But you try getting in the spirit without ornaments and lights, mmmkay?

I know. I have such a hard life. First-world problems and all.

But while we're talking about Christmas, let's talk about the main character: Santa (Ha! Thought I was gonna go all holy on you and say Jesus, didn'tcha? I'm sneaky like that). I have a confession to make. I love Santa. It's true. Now, I am not going to go all Brittany-from-Glee on you and tell you that I still believe in Santa. Actually, I don't remember ever believing in Santa. My parents were a little late to the party on that one and I am pretty sure I remember them trying to convince my enlightened and far-too-old-for-this seven year old self that Santa had left gifts for me. I was all, psh, puh-leez. I am too smart for this stuff. Fat man + chimney = bwahahahaha.



But I love Santa movies and elves and sleigh rides and the North Pole and smiling. Smiling's my favorite. There's just a feel-good charm about the whole thing. It's adorable and magical and there's plenty of room for imagination to run amok. And you know what? I've decided I'm a big believer in imagination. It's good for the soul. A little creativity never hurt anyone. We were wired to create, to wonder and to be thrilled by things. Let's run with that a little more, mmmkay? And Christmas is the most wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful time of the year to do that.



Now I have a few friends who are parents or about to be parents who are probably thinking about how to handle the Santa thing with their kids and to tell you the truth, I might feel differently about Santa if I was a mom. I'm not wild about letting my (fake) kid sit on a stranger's lap, tell him what they want for Christmas and then expect him to deliver on that. I don't know that I'd let them write letters addressed to the North Pole. I would definitely be emphasizing Christ in Christmas (I'm all holy like that, you know), but I also think that I would happily read them "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" and we would watch "Elf" every. single. day. between Thanksgiving and Christmas.



It's a cute story, really. A jolly old elf, flying reindeer, a magical sleigh with a sack bulging with presents. the naughty and nice list and a toy workshop. Adorable. Some people like wizards and Hogwarts and Narnia and lions and hobbits and rings and glittery vampires and russet werewolves (I mean really, people. Go back and read "New Moon" and count how many times the word "russet" is used to describe Jacob. Get a thesaurus, Stephanie Meyer. And with that, now you know one of my dirty little secrets. I read the whole freakin' series). I happen to like Santa. It's fantasy and whimsical and just plain fun.



So. There.

What puts you in the holiday spirit?

When knowing I'm yucky makes me happy

You. Guys. It is 10 degrees. For realz. And they're saying mean things during the weather segments, like "wind chill" and "below zero" and "frostbite." Rude.

Didja miss me, internets? (I know, I'm vain. It's part of my charm.) If I did my math right (and that's always kind of a question mark), this is my 100th post! Bow chicka bow wow!

Anywhozzle, I've been feeling a little scattered lately. My apartment is a mess because I'm never here to clean it up and when I am home, I just want to watch reruns of How I Met Your Mother. I've got work, cavities, people, shopping, parties, crafts, hearing aids and "who am I/why am I here/ohmygawsh I'm having an identity crisis" to think too much about. It's so fun.

But when I get like that, all distracted and frustrated and annoyed, I start thinking that I can handle things on my own and that I am, in fact, all of that and a bag of chips (I know, I am so hip with the slang, I can barely handle it).

But today at church, our pastor was, as always (and in a good way), hammering home the point that there is something wrong with all of us, we're more ruined and awful and messed up and broken than we can ever dare imagine, and that Jesus is our only hope and came to fill our greatest need - our need for a Savior to save us from ourselves.

And all I could think was, "How come knowing how broken I am is the only thing that makes me feel complete?"

So funny how that works. Knowing who I really am - a mess - is actually the thing that makes me the most settled. Because the more aware I am of myself, the more I recognize my need for a Savior. And knowing the depth and desperation of that need causes me to treasure Jesus even more and myself even less.

Which, let's face it, is hard to do. We're selfish people. We think the world is about us. We're here to further our own agendas, meet our deadlines, make the best decisions for our lives and basically, do what we have to do to feel good. And when God says to us, "That's not really the way to happiness," we don't really believe Him, because His idea of joy and contentment is so radically different from our own.

But it's better. Harder and messier and raw, but better.

One of my pastors tweeted not long ago: "My parenting of my (young kids) is currently focused on 2 themes: You're not in control and you are deeply loved."

Which I think is a pretty good thing for all of us to know. We're not in control. We are broken, messy and falling apart - and there's nothing we can do about it. We can't make ourselves right and we don't have it all together. But. We are deeply loved by a Savior from whom we have received grace upon grace. God, who does not merely offer a solution to our problem, but who Himself is the Solution to our problem, loves us lavishly.

Which makes me feel pretty small, and God pretty big, which is exactly as it should be.