Oh Snap! It’s the Little Things

June 26, 2016

When I was a little girl, I learned to wink, snap, and whistle just like everyone else.

I loved learning all of these milestones.

I always thought my whistle was a fail, until last week.

Lo and behold, I can actually whistle quite well. I just couldn't hear it.

What was once a very faint whistle now sounds to me much like all of the birds I'm now hearing.

Snapping my fingers was hard too. I could not snap.

I learned to snap in a fort that my best friend and I made from the tall grass in an empty lot near our houses.

That night, after long day of learning to snap, I went home, and went to bed.

I practiced my snapping until I fell asleep.

It wasn't a loud snap, but I was proud I could do it at least a very little bit of a snap with my right hand.

My left hand was another story. I tried, but for some reason, I just could not get my fingers to snap at all on my left hand. 

I never gave up trying.

For years, when I would go to bed, I would practice snapping my fingers!

I finally accepted that I was snapping deprived in my left hand. 

As I grew up, and people would share quirky things about themselves, I would share that I was unable to snap with my left hand. 

After I got my hearing aids, I was dancing to music, and I snapped my fingers!

What a shock to hear what a snap really sounds like!

Not only that, but both hands could snap! 

This morning, while I was getting ready for the day, I had my hearing aids out.

I decided to snap to see what I could hear.

I could hear my right hand slightly snap.  Not like I hear it with hearing aids, but exactly like I heard it my whole life. 

I snapped my left fingers.

Nothing.

I did this over and over.

Still nothing. 

So I put my hearing aids on, and sure enough, each of my different hands have a different snap sound.

My left one must fall into the pitches I can't or nearly can't hear.

All that practice paid off all those years.

Now, with the aid of digital hearing devices, I now hear my finger snapping on both hands. *See note below 

When I snapped my fingers this morning without hearing aids, it brought me back to my childhood, in my bed, falling asleep, where I never gave up trying. 

It's the little things.










* I have three residual sounds in my right ear that I can hear in the low tone. These residual did all of the work for me my whole life. My left hand the sound likely falls into the deaf sounds and my right hand must have some of the residual sounds that I was able to sort of hear. Cool stuff now that I understand it all better as time has gone by. 

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