I Can See It Now

Sunday night, my eardrum ruptured in my left ear. My right eardrum ruptured in January. I can't hear very well. I don't even know how many times my eardrums have ruptured. I've got to go see my ENT doctor again. With all the rupturing and then growth of scar tissue as they heal, my hearing has diminished greatly over the years. I anticipate, as did my primary doc, that I will probably have to have hearing aids someday. That blows.

John has trouble hearing, too. His difficulty comes when there is background noise. So, he can never hear at home, unless the kids are asleep! Yesterday we went for a quickie. That is, we had an hour long date before he had to head to work. We settle the kids and inform them we're leaving for an hour. We get in the car. "Where do you want to go?" John asks. "I don't know", I say. (This is very typical.) So, he starts driving. John: You choose, this was your idea. Me: No, you choose. (Do you see a pattern here?) So finally I choose Gandolfo's. They have grubbin' sandwiches. But, then across the street I see BK. I LOVE their fries. So then...Me: Maybe BK instead, I love their fries. John: Okay. Me: No, nevermind, you want to go to Gandolfo's. John: It doesn't matter. Just choose! We go to BK.

There we are eating, and because of my hearing, I can swear that I'm yelling. Am I yelling? No, John says. But how would he know? He can't hear either...there's background noise! I mean, we are both hearing impaired...maybe we're yelling so we can hear one another, but we THINK we're using normal voices. This is highly possible! *gasp* I look around to see if anyone is staring. No one is. Pheww...

But, I can just see us in the future. Two little old people yelling at each other. John says that we'll just learn sign language. *sigh* The joys of getting older. I am not happy about it. The hearing, the gray hair, being uncool and unhip. I mean, it really stinks. We also discussed John's hair. He's got two, um, "hair holes" in front (this is what the kids call them), as well as one in the back of his head. But, really he still has plenty of hair. I wondered and said: Do you think you'll lose more hair? Apparently, you can kind-of guess based on the mother's father. John thinks he won't lose much more hair. Well, that's good. Hair is nice.

We've also discussed how old we'll be when Lincoln leaves the house (if he's our last child and if he's out by 19--we can only hope). We'll be 55. That doesn't seem TOO bad. Does it? Because I had children when John and I married, we've NEVER BEEN ALONE! So, our alone time will be when we're older. I just hope we still have UMPH!

We'd like to travel. I can see us yelling at each other while we're driving in our RV. Me: Turn here! John: What? Me: Turn here!! John: Right or left?! Me: You missed the turn!!!! Hee hee! It'll be fun.I'm so glad I'll grow old with him, even if it means a lot of yelling.

Cynthia