As I sit here in the studio, I’m listening to Porcupine Tree, one of my favorite bands. It’s loud, but it’s not too loud.
I have moderate hearing impairment, which I first noticed when I was about 13 years old. I wear hearing aids, and audiologists say the loss appears to have been the result of exposure to loud sounds.
I cannot overstate what music means to me, and it has been this way since I was pre-verbal. It’s been my escape, my salvation, my independence, my identity, and always a companion. Sometimes it was an extraordinarily loud one.
I received training and education to be a sound engineer. And the month I graduated from the University of Texas with a BS in Radio-TV-Film, complete with a new job in a recording studio, tests confirmed that my ears were not sufficient for pursuing my dream.
The irony was inescapable: Music, which had healed and soothed me, had injured me because I’d not been careful.
That which I loved broke my heart.
That’s an oversimplification, of course, but perhaps the point resonates with others in the estranged parent community. There is no love quite like what a parent feels for their child. Frequently in PLACE meetings, members say that the children cannot possibly grasp this pain, because if they did, they would not have left.
I still love music as much as ever, though I don’t bludgeon my ears like I once did. I must admit that I enjoyed heartbreak songs more before I understood them like I now do.
