It's hard to be different. But it's harder *not* to be different. You'd think that I'd be an outcast, or have no friends because I can't hear. But no. Dad's made sure I got into the best schools for "hearing impaired" children. No one likes to say deaf. They think it'll bother me or something. What bothers me is the way they avoid it, like I'm some fragile little thing who can't handle real life.
My dad...he's different. He just tells me I need to work twice as hard to prove to everyone that I'm just as good as they are. I can hear a little bit, but he thinks I can't hear him with Cleo. They talk about me, and he talks about my mom and Roger. My mom died when I was three and a half, in a car accident. Dad and Cleo got custody of me, and I haven't seen much of Roger since. He sends cards, and my dad used to give them to me, but lately I've been having him throw them out. I just don't want to know anymore.
Cleo's a pediatrician, and I liked her a lot better when I was little. She can't deal with teenagers, which is why she likes my little brother Nate, he's only 4. I'm 16. Nate's Cleo's little baby, she thinks he's so wonderful because he's just a little kid. He's still amused by her little games and picture books. And he's her kid, not just her stepson. I know she loves me anyway, in her odd sort of way. I can't even talk to him, since he's so bad at signing, he's so young he won't sit still to learn. He can hear, and I know he can scream, because I can hear him, and I barely hear anything. The hearing aids help, but I don't love wearing them. At least they're smaller than they used to be. Aunt Jackie told me Dad sometimes took them off in pictures because they were so huge when I was little.
Jackie's like my mother, really. She watches out for me, even though she's got plenty of kids of her own to look after. They're all older, though. She emails me all the time, and Dad even got me my own laptop so I can keep in touch with everyone. I check my email a lot, just like checking the phone messages, in a way. It's where Dad and Cleo send everything I need to know. I feel like there's nothing so different about me anymore, because everyone uses the internet. It wasn't like that as much when I was little. And now the technology is better, I can hear a little more, and I'm getting a new hearing aid next week that's supposed to make my hearing almost normal. So I guess what it is about being deaf now...I don't feel like it's a big thing. Sometimes I can't understand, and I need to grab a handy notebook and pen from a backpack so someone can write to me what they need to tell me. But that's the extent of my problems, really. So why does everyone care so much that I'm deaf?
Everyone wants something special about themselves. Mine used to be that I was deaf. Now, with all this technology....I can't seem to find it anymore.