To Hear or Not to Hear: That is the Question

I feel guilty even writing about this subject.  I know there are people who would love to hear, those whose hearing was never there or those whose hearing loss can’t be helped.  And yet, I debate whether to get a hearing aid or not.

It’s not vanity that’s stopping me.  I have many friends with hearing aids that I didn’t even know about until they mentioned failing to put them in that morning.  Of course, the tech part of it would give me pain, the constant adjustments people seem to need.  The learning curb would be a slog, but I’m sure I could manage—with help.

So what’s holding me back?

Maybe I don’t want to hear what’s going on around me.  I’ve always been an insular person, living an internal life much more exciting than my day-to-day existence.  And I’ve always hated noise.

My daughter would love for me to get a hearing aid.  She talks, talks, talks; and I can only hear half of what she’s saying.  But, frankly, might that not be for the best?  On our latest trip together I did take note of her frustration, verging and sometimes reaching anger when I kept having her repeat what she said.  I tried to blame it on her enunciation, a charge she refuted.

But, when we go out to restaurants, she’ll say things like, “I hate that song.”  Well, I can’t even hear “that song.”  How much better not to be annoyed when I’m having a meal.  Then she’ll be irritated by what she overhears from another table.  I don’t have that problem.

Nor do I have much of a problem at home because I have subtitles on all my streaming channels so that I can catch whatever I can’t hear.  May I say some of those British shows, do they not know that mumbling has gone out of fashion with the angry-young-man era?

I have within the past two months gone to an ENT, mainly because I was having a sort of wind tunnel effect in my ear and it was very, very annoying.  (Fortunately for me, it comes and goes.). My ears checked out fine, all the nerves firing on full cylinders.  Then the doctor said, why not have a hearing test while you’re here?  So I thought, why not?  (Yes, the practice is associated with a hearing clinic, selling aids right next door.  I know because my husband got his hearing aids from them for over $5,000!)

My hearing test came back with minimum loss.  There’s just a certain level I can’t hear, and it happens to be right in the middle of the spectrum.  Perhaps this is why I prefer the bass voice to the tenor?

So what to do?  I’m neither fish nor fowl as far as hearing loss.  I know what they say about hearing loss adding to a risk of dementia.  But I also know there’s something very pleasant about living in my own little world, hearing what I want, not hearing what I maybe should be hearing.

It’s a dilemma I shall ponder.