Turning Point

I know it has been a LONG time since I have posted anything here...wow...I was startled when I looked at the date of my last post. Truth is, though, writing here has not been a passion of mine for a long time. I have discovered the simple, fun world of Facebook and that has been where I spend the majority of my time. I still love to write but writing about deaf issues just isn't something that really appeals to me right now.

I have decided that I have somewhat come full circle here. For years I was in denial about my deafness...I didn't want to be deaf and didn't want to talk about it. I pretended to be just your average "normal hearing" person for as much of the time as I could. I would tell people I was deaf but only when the situation called for it. I was embarrassed, quite frankly.

When I went completely deaf in March of 2007, my situation changed...I was suddenly undeniably deaf and had to face that fact. I jumped headfirst into the world of hearing loss...getting involved with every hearing loss group I could find, investing all of my time and energy there. I was no longer deaf and ashamed...I was deaf and proud of it. I was on a mission to change the world and their misguided views of deaf people. I loved it and I allowed it to consume my world almost completely.

Unfortunately, that kind of sudden, consuming passion tends to crash and burn rather quickly :). I went through a phase where I was just overwhelmed...too many irons in the fire, too much going on, too many different directions where I was being pushed and pulled emotionally and physically. On the go too much, taking time away from the things and people that really mattered. So many thoughts swirling through my head and not being able to sort them all out. I took a hiatus to stop the craziness...to sit back and think and prioritize. And now I see things a little more clearly.

I am so much more than a deaf person.

I am a creation of God, a daughter, a sister, a Christian, a friend, a wife, a mother, a teacher, a mentor. I am deaf, but that does not define me...it is just a small part of who I am. I am so much more than my non-working ears and the tiny personal computer that resides just behind them.

So I am shifting my focus here...and going back to blogging like I used to...about the big picture of life, not one small, isolated area of it. I am keeping this blog open and I may occasionally update it but I am going to attempt to start posting occasionally on a new blog that I created several weeks ago. It can be found here. This blog will always be my "CI blog"...even the URL reflects the theme...and as much as I loved reading CI blogs when I was researching, I hope that this will be a help to someone down the road somewhere...but I want to write about so much more...my family, my church family, what is cooking in my kitchen, the weather, what my cats have destroyed today, how many monkeys are in my collection now, what I want to be when I grow up. Share it with me? :)