Now that I know I have a hearing loss, and my brain is not tricking my ears as much, I am feeling, realizing what it feels like to have a hearing loss.

I know I am not hearing everything, and I know that I am missing a lot. I am reading lips still, but I am realizing how off I am on a lot of my lip reading. (A week ago, I did not even know I was reading lips. Oh my goodness.)

One example, which is so minor, but makes my point. I handed my credit card to the woman at Hobby Lobby, and she looked at it and said, "Chips are on sale." I thought to myself, why would she tell me that chips are on sale. I clearly could not hear her,  she said something before she said that, but her head was turned away from me. The lip reading that normally tricks my brain was not letting me think I heard her. I was relying fully on what I saw her say, and not what I heard her say.

It hit me, this did not relate to what I was doing, which was buying arts and crafts for my daughter's sweet friend, who we are hosting a wedding shower for.

So I paused.

I looked at her, and said, "I am sorry, what was that?"

She looked at me with a smile, and I read her lips, and bent my ear in more closely, and she said, "Chips are a fail. Watch your credit card closely."

Usually, I would have walked away and said, I have no idea why she told me chips are on sale, but oh my goodness people crack me up! I am sure that happens to a lot of people where they hear something differently.

What I am realizing is that my system for filling in what I hear, versus what I really hear, is not working any more. I am questioning what I heard, and in this case for good reason. I was buying arts and crafts, why would she bring up food? lol

In my world, I often wondered why people would bring up things that had nothing to do with what we were discussing. But I shrugged it off, because in my world, it was what I heard.

Every day I am learning more about who I am. I have only known since last week that I have a significant hearing loss. I would not need a test to prove that to me anymore. I am learning moment by moment.

Now that I know, my brain is not letting me trick my ears. Sort of like when you see a photo, and people say, "Can you see the old lady?" And you say, "No I only see the young woman." Then they show you the old lady, and you can't undo that.

No going back.