Since of the age of sixteen I have been unable to hear out of my right ear.  This first thing people usually say is,

” Pardon, what was that?”

And somehow that is supposed to be funny. Maybe it is? Just too real for me! The loss of hearing in my right ear had a profound affect on my personality it made me pause and look inwards as I adjusted to the loss of hearing and other surprising effects.

One effect was certain sounds, even now are so painful that I feel them through my entire body. I thought I was imagining this but recently my audiologist confirmed that what I was describing was real.

The second effect, seemingly unconsciously ( I now realise) is that from the time nerve loss stole my hearing at 16, I have lip read. Deciphering the hard-edged consonants and guessing the rest. Until I got my bone anchored hearing aid ( go google that!)  my body carried the unbelievable tension of focused listening.  My energy  strained and tied up in knots. This was from decoding language all day. I tried to make sense of the world, what people were saying and where the heck the sound actually came from. Here’s the thing though, deciphering communication is not just for the deaf..

The strain of understanding and listening, not just responding is real. Now with social media and our everyday habit of texting ( because who wants to call and have a conversation? ) things tend to get lost in translation. There are dangers that meaning can be lost, and all you are left with is punctuation or emoji’s to decode meaning.

Goodnight.

or

Goodnight!

or

Good night

or

Goodnight x

Gosh what do they all mean?

If my text bubble is bigger than their’s , am I talking too much? Should my text bubble be equal in size? If I respond last, is it their turn to initiate text next? Let me know people if you know the rule?

Ah the intricacies of text and meaning. Then there is the text mishap, chatting for two whole minutes with a Bestie before realising it’s your other Bestie who has been too polite to say something and when they do they text;

“Yes you called me  ( insert other Bestie’s name!) Notice I didn’t even care. It’s all good.”

Feel awful but reassured at the same time by the support of such fantastic friends!

Or the equally as embarrassing like on FB , the like you never meant to send, and too late to rescind. Oh God! Now everyone thinks I’m into some really kinky stuff, Omg!

Too late

Actually my kids have told me off about my texting.

“No full-stops mum!”

“Did you even read what you said? ”

Followed by a screenshot of a terrible jumble of letters or an amazing typo where I am suggesting they ate their friends, damn predictive text!

Perhaps it’s best to avoid losing meaning in text and social media by actually talking now and then, pardon me!