Day by Day: The Chronicles of a Hard of Hearing Reporter

Enjoy the Ride

111  Enjoy the Ride If you have ever been to San Francisco, you will understand this column completely. Driving in San Francisco is a real adventure. To use the streets of San Francisco in an analogy, I could say—no matter how corny it sounds—that the streets in this hilly city are similar to the ups and downs in life. Whether you are the driver or the passenger, life is a series of climbs and dives. Visualize San Francisco in the early s, a stick-shift Chevy Vega, and a young, novice driver and you should be able to see me popping around downtown San Francisco. I’m Still Grinding Gears on Life’s Hills April ,  As I started my car, I found myself laughing loudly at myself. The noise that emitted from my car must have sounded horrible. The car was already started, yet I could not hear the engine and so I tried to turn the key. You know the noise. As I laughed I thought, “When will you learn to watch for the lights, Elizabeth?” Was this conversation with myself telling me to adapt to my deafness? No, because I was laughing and not feeling stupid or ridiculous, but rather funny. I have adapted, but occasionally situations are hilarious. Adjusting to gradual hearing loss, to me, is similar to learning to shift gears. At first, you avoid inclines because you know you will roll backward until you press on the clutch and get it in the right gear. The inclines I avoided regarding hearing loss were situations when there was no one nearby to hear for me. I realize now I should have honed in on better communication skills earlier in life, learned to advocate earlier. However one should not live on regrets but learn from them. “Wise men learn by other men’s mistakes , fools by their own,” H.G. Bohn stated. I think we learn from both. But there is much less egg on our face when we learn from others ’ mistakes. I hope I am helping readers keep egg off their face. I remember driving in downtown San Francisco in the early s— not recommended—in my old car in which I learned to shift gears. I was still a novice. I prayed for all green lights, but eventually I had to stop at a red light on a huge hill. When the light turned green, I opened my door and motioned to the driver behind me to please back up. I remember the driver laughed, but he did back up. Maybe this action is common in cities like San Francisco, but it was very new to me. I remember feeling embarrassed. As my face burned with shame, I puttered to the top of the hill and sought out flatlands immediately. I wonder if that type of action is adapting or asking someone else to simply make things easier. I could have practiced shifting gears on hills more often instead of avoiding them. Whether this stubborn attitude was simply a sign of youth or a lack of foresight, I may never figure out, but I do drive an automatic car now. It is  years since this incident and I have learned, through life’s ups and downs, how to talk and write about my hearing loss, how to laugh at the funny situations and not take myself too seriously. That’s why I laughed after making that grinding noise in my car. Children laugh hundreds of times a day, yet adults often forget this healthy exercise. Just watch children playing, with their heads often tossing back in sheer delight and maybe all they did was miss a step while jumping rope. “Laugh and the world laughs with you, Weep and you weep alone,” the opening lines of the  poem “Solitude” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, are wise words. 112 Day by Day Life with progressive hearing loss is not an easy road to follow. Being a survivor of the ’s, I remember that the word “advocate” meant someone who held his or her fist up high and tight while fighting for a cause. Time has taught me, along with Webster’s dictionary that this word does mean “one who supports or defends a cause.” But the fist-holding part I decided to eliminate from my advocacy efforts. For I was not—and am not—angry. I was basically uninformed and apathetic. Hiding...