The Choices We Make

Last night well I was sitting in the rec room at the shelter, a program called “Cold Case” was on. This episode was about an unsolved murder of a deaf teenager. It goes without saying that I was extremely interested. What made it so interesting is that huge portions of the show were done in ASL (American Sign Language). For the first time in a long time, I felt like I was in the majority. As I sat there with Caleb, who was reading the sub-titles as the characters signed, I had to laugh. Here I was, able to watch the show without breaking away from the characters well everyone else in the room had to read the subtitles. It was funny cuz during the commercials I would get asked if what they were putting in the sub-titles was true. Of course it was, and I told them that. I felt so very comfortable but I also felt some of the issues that were in the show.

The deaf teen was killed by his best friend because he got a cochlear implant. The same implant that I have. His best friend felt that the other kid was betraying the deaf community and him by becoming hearing abled. As a result, he became extremely jealous and angry because their relationship had changed, and in the end, he killed him for it.

I can sympathize with both sides of this story. When you live a life where you are deaf, you join a society that is really all to itself. I never shunned hearing abled people but I also did not associate with them outside of my family for the most part. I usually stayed within the deaf community. Once I got the implant, some of my relationships with my closest friends changed. When you are deaf you tend to be able to read lips. When I got my ability to hear and speak, some of my best friends who are still deaf, would not read my lips. They would look away or make faces and then give me shit in ASL telling me that I should communicate with them in ASL. It’s hard to sit on both sides of the fence and not really be able to know exactly where your loyalties are. By getting the implant I had kind of sold out to the hearing world for a chance at a better life. If I stayed deaf, I would have been closer to the community and remained a part of that society. It’s a tough decision. It’s really no different than what I a going through right now with my parents. Being bisexual means that I have sold out on the straight community in their eyes. I have gone a road that they don’t find acceptable. When I stopped doing Chemo, I sold out on the medical profession as someone who was giving up. It seems that my whole life I have been faced with decisions that force me to pick sides. It’s not fun for me in the slightest.

There are days when I wish I never got the implant because with hearing comes the fact that you actually hear things you sometimes wish you couldn’t. I use to use my imagination around a lot things, especially around what certain things sounded like. My mind became a force to be reckoned with as I visualized what the sounds were. That’s right, visualized it. Now instead, I hear anger, despair, sadness, and shame. On the flip side I hear happiness, joy, excitement and pride. I guess it was a lot easier when I just read peoples expressions and looked into their eyes. I still do it mind you, looking into peoples eyes and reading them. With the eyes, you can’t lie; they tell the story just like the back cover of a book gives you the storyline.

I guess today’s post was really all about choices and the difficult ones we all have to make. Some have harder ones to make then others but I don’t think they are any less challenging. My decision to leave for another week, my decision to pursue my new lifestyle, my decision to go back to doing chemo and my decision to be hearing enabled. Life is full of choices and you often times never know if you have made the right one until it’s too late.

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