Nostalgia only protects you
within its own confines.
Welcome to “Portal Hopping,” my mostly-monthly newsletter where I write about art, Disability and other things that rise to the surface of my heart.
After the market I did the other week, I woke up the next day to my hearing aid unable to work. I did all the things I usually do in the previous evening to air it out but none of it seemed to work at that moment. I fiddled around and dehumidified the hearing aid some more, finally getting it to boot back on. It was a Sunday, but I messaged my audiologist anyway and my curiosity had me looking to see if the heat has impacted others who wear the hearing aid I wear.
Reddit and Discord really didn’t have the info I was looking for, neither did the official hearing aid manufacturing website. I see very clearly this is a symptom of global warming.
I chat with a friend on Instagram who has a wheelchair who talked to me about their wheelchair battery overheating to the point where it stopped working. We joke about it but also, there’s just this heaviness.
In the search to find some common experience, I remembered that when I had a Facebook back in 2018 that there was a group for people who had the same hearing aid as me. My relationship with social media continues to ebb & flow, especially as we clearly see now the clutch it has on so many parts of our lives.
It’s accessible though and so many Deaf/Hard of Hearing folks use Facebook to make connections as well as find information.
I reluctantly made a new account, only for Facebook to think that I was a bot. It prompted me to take a video of my face, which I did, and then I was “approved.” Not off to a very good start.
I was on Facebook though, so, the hassle up front surely would reap the rewards right? I requested to be in the hearing aid group and got accepted.
“Has anyone noticed that the increased heat & humidity impacts the functionality of your hearing devices?” I asked in the group. I could feel that rush of wanting to not only to receive dopamine, but just the general affirmation that I wasn’t alone in what I was navigating.
This took me back to a time when I was in my early 20’s where I joined a Facebook group with people who had the same syndrome as me. I thought, I would find connection and understanding, but that wasn't the case. While waiting for responses I fiddled around the group and read people’s posts. I found some information that was supportive, to make note of when I saw my audiologist and it also just reminded me of the disconnect I feel.
I see the correlation of global warming impacting Disability. It is directly impacting my device, making it more unreliable. I know I am not the only one seeing these correlations, however there are times where it feels more isolating to not only identify as having a Disabled body but to also identify politically as Disabled. I recognize the experiences I have navigated led me to this political identification and that not everybody reaches that conclusion even if they moved in similar experiences.
All of this, is in me wanting to find aligned community and I think this is the same for others use these tools too. It works for a lot of people! It worked for me at one time until I grew into different ways of understanding.
I ultimately was able to piece things together through the thread of various Facebook posts in the group to determine what was going on with my hearing aid. Nobody answered my query. I addressed this with my audiologist and am actively getting things hopefully situated. I debated still staying on Facebook, but found it too overwhelming and scrapped my account all together after just a week.
It’s a grave unknown. It’s only going to get hotter. All I can do is name what is happening to my device and hope people are connecting the dots like me. I think me sharing this, just is another call for understanding, like most of my work - especially when it comes to writing.
Nostalgia can be a trickster, we can think about past relationships, experiences and moments with this lens of a rose tint before settling deeper into the moments to taste bitterness.
It’s deeply human of us to second guess the boundaries we set, to give things one more shot. Sometimes the other chances work but other times they don’t. We find new ways, even if they weren’t what we thought they’d be, even if they feel extra difficult.
We can spend years honoring our boundaries, only to slip back into something that doesn’t, and still return to the boundaries we set beforehand after the misstep.
Was this writing supportive to you in any way? Feel free to share it with others. While I am no longer doing paid subscriptions on here, consider sending me a one-time tip for this piece. Thanks for taking some time to read this. See you next month!