agony

I'm listening to my iPod and crying.

Most of you won't understand this. You can't possibly understand. Most of you were born deaf and will never get any worse. But I almost wish Simon never bought me the goddamned thing.

The first time I listened to music on this I cried too. I have to listen without my hearing aids, and the volume turned all the way up. But because of that, the sound was so rich, so ORGANIC, so real, I thought, "this must be what hearing people hear, or close." And I cried with joy to experience it.

Since that time I've been listening to my iPod almost constantly. I carry it with me everywhere. The old one broke because of too much use and I was INCONSOLABLE. Simon got it replaced and I went on using it constantly. But tonight, listening to music and reflecting on a recent conversation with someone to whom I had to explain my progressive hearing loss, the music started to hurt me with its beauty. I started to cry and couldn't stop and still can't.

Do any of you out there realize that it is possible to play a piano TENDERLY, like you would caress a lover? So tenderly, it would break your heart? Does anyone else out there feel uplifted when they hear a particular tune? I'm not talking about feeling a bit better. I'm talking about feeling TRANSPORTED. Feeling blissful. It's beyond my ability to describe the capacity that music has to affect you.

I love music. I MORE than love music. It's buried deep in the core of me, a vital part of who I am. And yet it seems as if I'm destined to lose it completely, or at least never be able to appreciate it in this way again. I take this granted on a day-to-day basis (after all, it's a fact I've lived with for a very long time) and I thought I had made my peace with it. I now know that I was wrong. I will NEVER make my peace with it. I will always be angry, I will always cry and despair. It's just tearing something out of me, this thing. I can't stand it.

I must sound like an awful crybaby to those of you who will never understand the richness of this particular sense. It IS almost like sight...not quite (I still think sight is more useful than sound; blind people can't drive, but deaf people can) but in its dimensions, it is as complex and sensual. It is three-dimensional. There is so much that you can evoke from the tiniest sound, a catch in one's voice, a tremor in the words.

But whatever anyone thinks of me, tonight it just seemed to be too much to bear when I listened to the music and was struck, once again, with the exquisite beauty of the human voice, of the instrument skillfully played. I closed my eyes against the sheer majesty and might of it, feeling the emotions crash over me like a great wave, and something in me died a little more for remembering my continuing hearing loss.

It fucking hurts and it never gets any better.