Yesterday was a nice day. My hubby had the entire day off work which is pretty rare (he works two jobs, so we grab whatever time together we can!). It was just nice to spend some time together and feel like we had a chance to reconnect. The communication barrier is there, but we are working around it. He was out-of-town when this hearing loss episode occurred, then right back to work the day after he got home, and I was so sick last week we really haven’t had much chance to just be together. It did us both good, I think. A lot has happened in the past couple of weeks.

We had a family dinner with our kids on Tuesday night. It made me think about the fact that I will continue to need to make choices during this adjustment process. My family and friends have been so patient and kind and wonderful working on communicating with me. A family dinner is a perfect example of how our lives will be different in spite of that. There was a lot of conversation that I was not a part of. This is an unavoidable part of this situation. We all worked together and I was definitely a part of the gathering, but there were also long periods of time when I was in the background and there, but not a participant. I expect this now, but didn’t really realize just how long those time periods would/could be. I was tempted to get on my cell phone and play games or check Facebook. I know those are acceptable things to do – it does get a little boring just watching people talk and having it all on “mute.” I may have to think about it more, but I decided for that night that it would be very easy for me to slip into the mode of being there, but not really being there and I don’t want to do that, so I put my phone down. It also made me think about the fact that I may need to make some choices during these situations – not just family gatherings, but any social situations – and make sure that I interject myself into things at least some of the time. I can see it being very easy for people to forget about me – I totally understand that. I don’t want the attention to always be on me either – I really don’t. I’m one of several members of the group, and it shouldn’t be any more about me than anyone else. Sometimes it’s nice to step back and give my brain a little rest from all of the effort it takes to communicate. I can just see how very easy it could be for me to move from being an interactive participating member of the family (or group) to not being one at all. I really don’t want that to happen and I know no one else does either. It is something that I think could easily happen unless I/we actively work at making sure it doesn’t. Maybe that will only be for a short time, and then once we’ve adjusted to our new norm it will naturally be whatever we’ve chosen to make it. I don’t want to become a peripheral family member. I don’t want to be the center of attention. I just want to continue in my normal and current role as an active and participating member along with everyone else. Maybe that’s only realistic to a point. I guess time will tell.