It’s a lonely world. Or is it just here, or is it just me? I always feel like an outsider. I always try to grab a hold of friends and family and pull them in my direction. But they hardly ever follow. Instead I meet new people. Every time I change. I feel like I constantly move in new directions. I feel like I’m constantly faced with new questions that need to be answered, like I’m in a cycle, but I keep rolling on. I always read both sides, I do all the research. Research takes a long time. I keep moving forward, always closer to the deep down me, and that’s a lonely place. My latest quest I’ve been telling you about, writing about, asking questions. Although to you and me it all seems like one big long saga. The infertility, the choices I had to make to have kids, having twins, having a kid with hearing loss, and then learning sign language. All my writing since Fiona was a baby. (By the Way: I decided to change my kids’ names in my new book I’m going to publish, but you guys know who my books about.) Can you hear me? I wondered when Fiona was a baby, before she talked. I wrote about that. Now I know she probably heard way less than I was made to believe. I wish I would have done WAY more sign with her when she was a baby. I didn’t know, I didn’t really know until she was around three years old and it was obvious, she was missing whole swaths of information, particularly when there was more than just Fiona and I communicating. Which was/is pretty much 24/7 because I have twins.

Having twins makes me lonely because I feel like only my friends with multiple little kids can relate to the CHAOS I live! It’s totally insane and I’ve written about that and all that I went through when they were babies and toddlers. Much to do about actual shit and throw up and piss. I fucken made it through. When I first was learning sign, and it’s crazy to think now that I started studying SEE sign almost five years ago, and I’ve studied religiously. I posted my first video on Lifeprint today, the ASL online community. It was nerve racking! And I’ve studied for so long, but I’ve only been studying ASL for a few months and only had two official ASL classes in person. I’ve been studying on an online go at your own pace course and reading an ASL book. I also enrolled in an ASL class at a community college in the fall, which I’m so excited about. I realized BIGTIME when making my SL video that I need so much practice. Real life practice and confidence.

Anyhow, now my place of loneliness comes from my situation with Fiona and “The hearing world”. My world. Since the ear infection and the seven days, those seven days when Fiona had her ear infection and couldn’t wear her right hearing aid and her left ear had/ has lost so much hearing she can’t hear anymore out of it, even with her hearing aid. She was deaf and I tried to use SEE. But Jack and Alan didn’t know SEE and Fiona’s best friends didn’t know how to play with Fiona as a deaf person, it seemed. Everyone was sad. But since then I have had very close friends say, “But not everyone’s going to sign, her friends aren’t going to learn to sign” , “Maybe she would thrive in the deaf community” and “she has to know how to communicate with hearing people because it’s a hearing world” and other things. Not super supportive of ASL and not mainstreaming Fiona. This makes me lonely. And sad and I question, do they even want to continue building our friendship and the friendship between my kids and their kids’? Or will it be too much trouble? I have to prepare myself and Fiona that she could lose more hearing in her right ear. If that happens sign language will truly be the only way to communicate well, effectively. And what a beautiful language ASL is?

It’s a lonely world because I think, I may be too difficult. I don’t try to be. I don’t want to ram my ideology down other people throats or anything like that. Oh my god I’m so emotional. Sorry. I thought I was happy. I am happy, but sad. I just finished my 50/50 paintings; I signed the back and I sprayed them. I need to write my statement, which the project coincidentally started the first day of the seven days, you know those seven days I keep rambling about where my daughter couldn’t hear and her school and SEE sign didn’t prepare me for that. That’s not fair. They did, some of the teachers did. I’m processing. That’s it. It’s a lonely world and I’m part of a major on-line support system now. My painting project started the weekend of Fiona’s ear infection but right before that I visited CSD. Since that visit I’ve had MORE support from people I met on-line than ever. I feel bad I have asked a few of my new online friends so many questions. They have been more than gracious to answer, and I feel better knowing if something happened to me, I would hope my new friends from the deaf community would be there for Fiona as she gets older and I know they would. I know they would have Fiona’s back. That makes me not so lonely and sad.

Unfortunately, I’m a crazy, political, artist. I’m emotional and am older than many moms with kids my kids age. I had my kids older, and I’ve been through so much. I’m just crazy I guess.