Hearing Aids, Day 1

I generally forget that I have Christmas decorations up all year long. The vintage tree ornaments hanging up top go about a quarter of the way around the kitchen. They belonged to Glen's family. I am sure they are coated with the black greasy dust which is a constant annoyance to anyone who lives around here. I think it may be a product of the train tracks running through my back yard but who knows? 
Certainly not me. 
Now, the star lights framing the doorway have been hanging there, plugged in twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for quite possibly ten years. Some of them are losing their brightness and none of them are going through the entire spectrum of colors they did for the first five or six years. 
I believe I got those lights at an after-Christmas sale at the Walgreens in Monticello. I also believe I have a back-up string just in case the unimaginable happens and they finally give up but no string of star lights could possibly be as faithful and sturdy as those. 

So see- it's not Christmas decorations per se I do not like. It's really just Christmas. 

Today has been a day of mixed emotions. It hit me this morning that I really was about to go get hearing aids and although I have been feeling very positive about this development, knowing that it will indeed enlarge and open up my world, it is yet one more sign that my parts are wearing out and simply do not work as well as they should. Or used to. And will never be getting better. 
I think almost everyone has a negative view of hearing aids. The ones from days of yore were huge, bulky things and I will forever connect them to my grandmother who became profoundly deaf at a very young age and I never got a definitive answer on how that happened. My grandfather told me once that she became deaf when she blew her nose while holding it to clear her ears. 
Somehow I doubt that. 
But she could barely hear a thing and her balance was so wacky. I look back and I realize that I never really knew the real Ruth Slocum Alexander who was, by all reports an incredibly spirited woman who dared defy some of the restrictions put upon women in her day. "Her day" began in 1893 when she was born and my god, that was a long time ago. A hundred and thirty-two years? My mother could remember when Granny could sing and dance but by the time I came to know her, she was restrained for the most part, quiet, and apt to stumble. 
AND, she had hearing aids. They were the kind that fit into her glasses which in and of themselves were rather horrendous. I can remember distinctly how they magnified her eyes to the point where they scared me a little. And the hearing aids had plastic tubes that went into her ears and they would shriek at times and took batteries of which she had hundreds, used and spent. Now I never really looked at her and thought, "Wow, my granny looks weird in those things!" but I did wish she could hear us better and I was aware that those devices set her apart from the other ladies in her circle. 

And so even though I was quite aware that today's hearing aids are completely different than the ones Granny wore, I cannot help but make that connection in my head and this morning, with the rain pattering down and the sky iron gray and the temperature not comfortable for us Floridians, my head went back to those early memories and just the words, "hearing aid" made me feel dull and left me wondering what's next? 
A weekly perm and blue dye and a hair net and black clunky shoes and having three dresses, all the same exact pattern, just different designs to be rotated as the week goes on? 
Oh Lord. 
Of course not and yet...

But Glen and I took off in the rain and the cold for our appointments with Ms. JaLisa. Costco was packed, despite the weather but we went directly to the hearing center and JaLisa gave us the introductory information together and then first me, and then Glen, got our fittings and she set everything the way it should be set with some sort of technological and (for all I know) alien magic and our phones are now blue-toothed paired with our devices. 
But. 
But. JaLisa let slip that she would be gone for the next two weeks for bereavement leave as her father had died on Thanksgiving. 
We both gave her our condolences, of course, and after Glen left the little sound-proof booth/office, JaLisa whipped out her phone and showed me some pictures of her daddy and told me how beloved he was and how many people showed up last night at a memorial for him and then we were both crying and I mostly just listened to her because that is what she needed. She needed to be heard. 
She actually needed not to be at work but she assured me that it helped being there, to keep her focused on something other than her grief. 
So my part of the instructions and fitting took quite awhile because there was no way I was going to rush that woman, no way I could be impatient, no way I could not listen to the words of her heart. 
I was deeply moved. I had no words of advice- I don't know what it's like to lose a beloved father but I do know what it's like to lose a beloved. 

And all of that put everything in perspective for me. Hey! At least I've gotten old enough to need hearing aids. And with them, I will be able to hear my grandchildren better, not to mention the fact that I have also lived long enough to have grandchildren who know me and know I love them. 

And then Glen had his turn and then we both hugged JaLisa and she thanked us over and over for being so understanding and off we went to a very late lunch which didn't bother me because my stomach has been bothering me a bit but which he sorely needed as breakfast had been long, long ago. 

So far, I am not noticing a huge difference in my ability to hear. Nothing sounds newly and terribly loud. I can still hear the same patter of rain and I don't know what it will be like when I'm in a situation with lots of background noise although I will say that I could hear the Muzak in the restaurant way too clearly as they were playing Christmas songs and fuck that. But I could have turned the aids down if I had wanted. 
I am realizing though, that I will have something foreign in my ears forever or at least until I'm too demented to notice or care that I can't hear or too dead to need them. And that's weird. It gives me crazy respect for my Granny, though. And I'll get used to this. 

As for the vanity of wanting them to be as invisible as possible- they are. I actually took some pictures of the side of my head to show you what they look like in my ear but I was so horrified at what the side of my face and my earlobe look like that I can't bring myself to post them. 
Delete, delete, delete.
So yes, I am vain, of course. But hey! You can barely see those cute little miracle devices. And getting past the age spots and not-wrinkles-but-folds will probably prevent most people from looking into my ears anyway. So what the hell does it matter? And as I said, I'll get used to the feeling of having them, just as I've gotten used to wearing glasses. 

Well, let's hope it's like that and not like wearing a bra which I have never gotten used to and never will. At least I care about my hearing more than I care about where my bosoms are in relation to my chest. 

Ooh boy. 

Love...Ms. Moon