With my family, there have been ups and downs in terms of communication. I've always been able to understand what my mom says to me. Same with my dad. That's one of the benefits of growing up with them for 21 years. As for my brother, it's the same concept. They're easy to lip-read. I recognize their voices. I can talk to my mom pretty easily on the phone. My dad and my brother - not so much because they have low voices. It didn't matter whether I had been growing up with them all my life - I still couldn't understand them on the phone. I noticed that it's easier for me to talk to females on the phone. Whenever it's my mom, my aunt, my two grandmas, my cousin from Indiana, and a few friends of mine, it was easy to carry on a conversation. But when I had to talk to someone on the phone that was a male, and developed their voices, it was not so easy. I always had to guess what they would say. Sometimes, that would be true in person as well.
When it comes to family gatherings, that always proved to be a challenge. Trying to catch the context of the conversation happening, why they were talking about it, and what they were saying about it. Trying to figure out who was saying what. Where the voice was coming from. Trying to lip-read from afar. Sometimes it would be dark outside or it would be shadows covering their lips. My younger cousins and step-brother are sometimes easy to understand. It depended, really. Whether they were really excited about something or sad, they tend to talk fast and with their lips moving fast, that definitely made it hard to understand. When they get excited, their voices go high and that is a challenge for sure. But just because they're hard to understand doesn't mean I don't want to play with them. I just miss out on the information they tell me to play games and stories. It's okay though, because they're family. And they will get older and easier to understand. I think that's why it's hard to understand kids sometimes - because they have random moments, they talk fast, have high voices, and they look around a lot because they have short attention spans. I know that's why I don't want to be a teacher for children. But I love children anyway. =)
Communication is tough. I know it was when I was in school. Having to catch up with what's happening in group discussions. I didn't like having to rely on people for what I missed. It happened too often. That's why I was happy when I met a few people who knew ASL in high school. I started hanging out with an older group who were all Deaf and hearing that knew ASL. My parents knew they could trust them, even though they were already in college and I was still in high school. It gave me a new perspective on how to understand things happening around me. Things were becoming clearer. That's why I chose to go to the college I'm attending now. There are more Deaf students and more Deaf Studies majors who I could communicate with easily by use of ASL. I'm even a teacher's aide for a deaf class with a deaf teacher. This gives me more of a hands-on experience for when I become a teacher of the Deaf later on. I'm learning different ways of communication through ASL. It isn't easy. It's the same idea of having to find different ways of communication though English when I was in elementary, middle, and high school.
Communication is very important to me. That's why I love having a phone. I can text a lot of people. I can use Facebook to keep in touch with those who went on a different path of life or to keep in touch with family that don't live near me. I love using Skype and Tango and Whatsapp to keep in touch with other deaf friends of mine. It doesn't matter to me where they're from, if they're from India or if they're from a town over from me. It makes for easier face-to-face communication using ASL instead of English.
I miss being able to talk on the phone with my mom. To be able to call her up randomly with a few questions, comments. Being able to call up a few random family members once in a while to see how they're doing.
That's why I'm looking forward to this new cochlear implant. To see if it can give me a new perspective on how I can communicate with everyone. See if it helps me figure out a better way of communicating with family and friends. I'm hoping for the best. And I know it will be a huge improvement.
DISCLAIMER: These comics I just posted are not my creation. It was by Matt & Kay Daigle. It's their comics. And they are hilarious. "That Deaf Guy" Comics!
