I’m still here

Is it because I am getting older or is it because I am losing weight? It would appear that I have become invisible.

So many people have told me lately that I am shrinking, I have lost a fair amount of weight (the scales don’t agree). Last night I took the plunge and weighed myself (expecting a great result) I was exactly the same as I had been the last time, which was about 6 or 7 weeks ago. The good thing is that my clothes have been getting bigger. Oh and the last time I weighed myself it hadn’t changed in a couple of months either. Are my scales broken?

I am just glad that unlike some of my friends I am not a slave to my scales. They do not tell the whole story on their own. Maybe all the walking I am now doing has changed my fat into muscle so that my body is trimmer than it was but the bulk still weighs the same.

So I am losing body mass but not weight.

Something else I am slowly losing is my eyesight. This does worry me more than my weight. I didn’t need glasses until a few years ago, even when I started wearing glasses I didn’t wear them very much only when I needed to. These days however I find I need to wear them 95% of the time. I have two pairs of glasses (both with reactor light film). I have vari focals for reading and middle distance, plus long distance for driving etc. When I am out doing my catalogues I could easily wear both. I am noticing more and more that my eye sight has got worse over a few short years, Where does that leave me in a few more years? I am grateful that we live in such a beautiful country and I get to see lots of wild birds whilst out walking (I can’t always see what they are though). Over the past few years I had forgotten many of the flowers that I used to grow but now I see them and many others in the gardens that I pass through.

With my love of bright colours I am sure other people will be able to see me even when I can’t see as much as I did.

I have never been able to hear properly, I do have two digital hearing aids but these are only really much use when talking to someone on a one to one basis. Because most of my time I am surrounded by sound, my hearing aids don’t help much as they magnify all sound and I still lose what is being said. I rarely wear them any more. I tried to wear them in the office recently (I didn’t tell anyone) but I couldn’t hear any better so gave up.

All my colleagues and most of my friends know that my hearing is not great. I spend a lot of time asking people to ‘say that again’. I am sure most people have got used to my  blank looks when I have no idea what they have just said to me. Most of the time I figure it out by guessing what the missing words should be. If you imagine a completed jigsaw puzzle with gaps where pieces have got lost. You still have a good idea what the picture is, you just don’t have all the detail. That is what my hearing is like. My main problems come with words like  did/didn’t, have/haven’t could/couldn’t, was/wasn’t. I think this is why I try to enunciate every word clearly and why when I write I do the same. For this reason I don’t think I will ever become a successful writer because I write the way I speak, the way I need other people to speak to me. This is not natural for most people, I find contractions in speech difficult.

More and more I am finding that when people are talking around me I can’t keep up with the conversation so I give up trying and retreat into my own world. Sometimes I find it annoying that people don’t make sure I know what is being said, other times I find it hurtful that conversations are carried out around me knowing that I can’t hear properly, this makes me feel excluded.

I should be used to this feeling of being excluded, it has been happening to me for many years. Yet I still find it hurts. When my boys were growing up and belonged to the local football clubs there were a  lot of family events that my family didn’t get invited to, I assumed that it was because my then husband was very embarrassing, that and our lack of money meant we couldn’t often afford to join in, it would have been nice to be asked though.

Now though I realise that it must be something about me. On the face of it everyone likes me, I am often told I am lovely, that people like me, I get on with most people but I guess I must be kidding myself still.

Yes I am feeling sorry for myself and no that is not part of my normal character,  Yes I am generally a positive happy person, that doesn’t mean I don’t get hurt sometimes.

There are many social events going on that I couldn’t or wouldn’t be able to go to, some I just wouldn’t want to go to. Some I don’t have time to go to. What hurts the most is being kept in the dark.

I feel isolated enough because I can’t hear as well as the rest of you, I understand that you might think I might not be able to go to various events and sometimes I might not be wanted there, but please don’t keep secrets from me.

I might not be the life and soul of the party but it would be nice to be invited sometimes.

Before everyone starts thinking that I want/expect to get invited to everything I don’t. What I object to is the secrecy, not only do I miss out on the event but also the chat about what to wear who is going how every one is getting there and also hearing about it afterwards.

Now I am going to cheer myself up by going out walking with the sun on my face and the breeze in my hair, see the birds flying hither and thither, enjoy the colours of the flowers and forget about everyone else.