What's it Like to Go Deaf?

I've been losing my hearing at a fairly rapid clip. It's more than half gone, so I've accepted that my aural world is seriously contracted, and will only get worse. What was once vibrant and richly absorbing is now gestural and distant.

As a kid, I was deeply pained by the story of Beethoven conducting his final symphony and being unable to hear the triumphant applause (it's said that a musician gently spun him around toward the audience, which makes for a poignant story, but I assure you that conductors never forget there's an audience behind them, and can pivot on their own to acknowledge applause, audible or not).

I don’t view things that way anymore. A few years ago I started opting out of telling myself sad stories about my life. I'm not living on-screen, so there’s no need to play out cinematic scenes. But even though I no longer self-indulgently troll myself, it's still surprising how little I've grieved over my deafness. I'm barely even annoyed by it. I've been straining for a metaphor, and think I finally found it. Here's what going deaf is like: It's like running low on milk.

When you run low on milk, maybe you won't eat cereal because you need to save some for morning coffee. There are tradeoffs and compromises, but they're taken in stride. Nobody yells "DAMMIT!" because they can't enjoy Corn Flakes right this minute. Certain tanks aren't always full, so we adapt and compensate. No biggie.

If you really fixated on it, you could make yourself miserable over the deprivation. No Corn Flakes! No milkshakes! No chocolate milk or bechamel sauce! You could, with effort, manage to pitch a fit over losing the option.

But we don't, because we're oddly sane about resource management. We don't become emotional wrecks when the gas needle moves left, or as we use up soap or toilet paper or cell plan minutes. Having framed these things as depletable, we don’t launch displays of grief and anguish.

It's a lot easier to buy more milk than to buy more hearing, of course. But the thing is, milk runs out all the way - no more milk! - while hearing, usually, doesn't. Hearing-wise, there's usually a drizzle of milk for the coffee. And probably enough for some Corn Flakes, too, if you handle it sensibly!

The "low fuel" light flashes, but the car's still moving. There'll be no extended bubbly shower with a mere sliver of soap, but you can get clean if you're reasonably strategic. That's what going deaf is like. There's stuff to forego and to adopt to, but you can hear what you need to hear if you're reasonably strategic (e.g. captions always on). No running the air conditioner on the low fuel tank. No playful soap beards hanging from your chin. But until it runs out all the way, it feels as mildly inconvenient as being low on milk.