The playlist in my mind

I didn't lose my hearing until I was 13 years old. By then, I'd heard a good deal of music. After I lost my hearing, I wore a hearing aid. The hearing aid helped me to still enjoy music in some way, though I couldn't hear it as good as I used to. Mostly, I relied on memory, waiting until the lines were sang and singing along with what I could remember. Enjoying new music wasn't something I tried to do, though I WAS curious about the current bands and popular songs. Of course, being deaf, I didn't make it my mission to learn all about them. Music just wasn't that big of an interest for me anymore. My sisters and brothers pretty much compensated in that regard, showing me lyrics to new songs, offering cues to when lines were sang and pretty much filling me in on the different types of bands out there. (Well, SOME of them. I normally didn't hear about a band until I asked about them or they were mentioned in conversation.)

After I lost more hearing, enjoying music like before was impossible. As strong as my hearing aid was, I just couldn't "hear" the songs so good anymore. I couldn't talk on the phone anymore, either.

So I was left with what music I WAS familiar with up until then. So it has been since. And from time to time, those old songs will play in my mind. I guess you could say I have a personal collection of favorite songs in my memory. Some of them I don't remember as well as before anymore -- like, I forget how the music went or how the lines were sang -- but most of them are there and they are songs I still enjoy even today. They're old songs, true, but I still enjoy "listening" to them, even if I "listen" to them in my mind or even sing them once in a while. I guess in this way, I'm keeping those songs "alive."

Sometimes I wish those songs could REALLY be playing when I'm remembering them, so that my children can enjoy them, too. I don't know how that would be possible, unless one of my sisters was willing to take the time to burn a bunch of CDs for me. I guess someday they will hear them. (I DO have an 80's Pop Hits CD, and my daughter LOVES playing "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." Yeah, I remember that song, too.)

Some people have iPods and their own playlists and burned CDs. Me, I've got the music I remember in my mind. And when I recall those songs, playing them in my mind, I can still enjoy them just as much as I did when I could hear them.