The Work of Alignment

At the beginning of this year, I wrote that alignment is one of the things I will be working on.

Alignment can mean so many things. Feeling aligned with your work and whether it is in line with your values, your aspirations, your contribution to the big picture, or whatever that may be.

In that sense, I am in line with the purpose of my work. It contributes to the ideal that everyone is worthy of the opportunity to reach their full potential.

There is one place where I am not aligned. My feelings, my thoughts, my grief, and my anticipation do not agree. They are not in harmony.

Not too long from now, I will undergo a cochlear implant procedure.

I can say the sentence cleanly, even calmly. Sometimes I can even say it with a kind of adult steadiness, as if it is simply a medical fact.

Then my heart catches up.

I have spent most of the past year trying to come to terms with the idea, with the fact, that whatever hope there may have been — that this step would not be necessary yet — has run out.

You grieve, you read more, you learn more, and then you grieve again.

Some days, I can hold the information like a set of instructions. Practical. Neutral. A plan.

Some days, the information feels like a verdict.

I was born hearing. For half my life, I was a hearing person. This reality of hearing loss started in 2010. You take in that you need hearing aids, because what else are you going to do? But with every audiogram, you still hold out hope. You listen for the beeps and boops like they are evidence that life is still willing to bargain with you.

Stable, it says.

Then it doesn’t.

Instead, each year the graph trends downward. And then there are the sudden, significant drops, the kind that make you wrack your brain: Why? How? What did I do wrong? We were stable for a while. We being me and my ears.

And so here we are.

The audiograph and lived reality say it is time to take the next step. You are too far gone.

I understand this. I can explain it. I can make the case for it.

And then I cannot accept it.

One would think that since I have other conditions that are considered disabilities, the final nail on this particular condition would not faze me.

Oh, it fazes me.

It fazes me because I keep trying to treat it like the other things. Like something I can manage if I am careful enough. If I am disciplined enough. If I just do the right things, the right way, consistently, surely it will stabilise.

But this asks no permission and gives no room for mitigation. With the others, I can take medication, adjust my life, learn the triggers, and shift my pace. There are levers to pull.

With this, the lever is not in my hands.

So I grieve. I read. I learn. I try to be rational. I try to be brave.

And then I grieve again.

Possibly lose the 10% I have? It is 10%, but it is my 10%. I can tell myself that it is small, but my body does not experience it as small. My body experiences it as mine.

And still, the rational story returns. It always returns.

Yes, I know that I might gain much more than I have lost. Yes, I know that I might hear better than I do now.

I know.

I really do know.

But this is not about rationality or intellectual realities.

This is about how the heart, the mind, and the soul are not in alignment about what is coming.

Acceptance arrives in fragments. It stays for an hour. Sometimes for a morning.

Then it leaves without saying goodbye.

Julius Mbura shared his experience of coming to terms with the loss of his eyesight. I wanted to, and still want to, reach the point of coming to terms with what is now my reality. I want to know what he knows, not as a concept, but as a lived steadiness. I think I need more lessons.

People ask, “But you have other disabilities, why are you having trouble with this one, but you can accept the others?”

With the others, there is effort, and that effort has an effect. There is a relationship between what I do and how I feel.

With this, there is no negotiation. It is not a flare. Not a phase. Not a season.

It is the loss of a sense.

And that is a different kind of grief.

It is a grief that repeats itself. A grief that does not stay healed just because you understood it once.

You grieve, you read more, you learn more, then you grieve again.

Because how do you say goodbye to a sense?

Because how do I let go of what I know and, at the same time, accept the possibility of what I might get?

Because I am scared.

Because I am scared of this change.

Because I hope for miracles that really won’t happen.

Because I am in pain. Not physical pain, soul pain. About this particular thing.

And yet, I am aligned with the concept that some things never align. That acceptance is not a switch you flip, but a place you return to, over and over, and sometimes you cannot stay there.

Still, I keep trying to will myself into alignment.

Because alignment is work. Continuous work.

Alignment is asking your mind, heart, and soul to be at one.

And I have my work cut out for me.