Have you ever had moments of perfect silence in your life? I understand that’s a tough question to wrap your head around. I don’t mean silence like the moment before your mind shuts down for the night. I also don’t mean a nice, quiet little walk by yourself through a not-very-populated area. I do not mean “quiet,” at all. I mean silence. The absolute absence of sound.
I can remember the first time it happened. I left the house early. Picked up by one of my friends’ dad. Little eight-year-old me was so excited to try out for the little league team. For some reason I was allowed to do so even though I was not the “required,” starting age of nine. Looking back, I think that there weren’t many kids that wanted to play baseball bad enough at my age. I sure did, that’s all I cared about. Anyway, I’m rambling.
As I was waiting outside with my little baseball mitt and little baseball cap, the world went completely silent. I didn’t or couldn’t understand at the time what was happening. I know now that I had received something of a “harbinger,” before my surroundings went completely silent. I can only describe it like all the sound was draining from the world as if it had been flushed down a toilet. I could “hear,” the sound leaving. It’s just the most impossible thing I’ve tried to describe. To this day.
It didn’t last long. Long enough for me to pause and take stock of everything I have going on at that very moment. It’s never long, even now. I’d estimate 10 to 15 seconds. I never know when it’s going to happen and for whatever reason I always remember the dates. I don’t even have to write them down. The first time this happened to me, me in my little baseball cap, was July 22, in the year 1991.
The day was uneventful. I shouldn’t tone it all the way down like that. The day was good for me, at least. I made the team. Eight years old, playing with 9–12-year-old kids. But the harbinger that for whatever reason sucked all auditory sources from me did not have a follow up act.
The next time my hearing was sapped did not occur until nearly 8 years from that little league try-out day.
I was having a fun spring day with one of my best friends, Adam. We played a bit of catch, went to the corner store (the “C” store, we called it,) and ended up at his moms’ house just sitting down on the front lawn. Where I grew up, that first 40-degree day in the spring was like being on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean. After such a harsh winter and suffering from massive cabin fever, we relished that first warm day of the season. We even took off the Arctic Circle parkas we usually wear 8 months out of the year.
I remember having a conversation with him. I’m guessing, based on the time, it involved Stone Cold Steve Austin, talking about the Star Wars re-boot, or even the impending Y2K hysteria. I don’t remember when we started to worry, but it seems like we talked about it all of 1999.
As he was saying something I knew it was happening. That feeling of everything slowing down. It wasn’t of course, but the sound gradually draining made it seem like life was in slow motion. This time it was more like turning down the volume knob on your boombox.
Adam kept talking. How could he have known. I did my best to nod along and try to guess what he was saying. I’d add the “right,” or “yea, I agree,” to hopefully give the illusion that I’m listening. We do this all the time, but I truly wasn’t ignoring him, I couldn’t hear! Eventually, like the first time, my hearing came back. This time I felt an odd sense of melancholy. We didn’t have a lot of avenues to research mental illness. Let alone did we ever talk about it. I’m not saying I needed professional help or anything, but I didn’t understand why I had become so sad so quickly. But like all things, this too passed. The date was April 20th, 1999.
Life goes on. My next event didn’t take the better part of a decade, but I still was taken by surprise. I was young when this happened. Both times. While in my reflection on these unique phenomena I realized that as soon as I regained my hearing I pretty much forgot about the whole thing. The older I get, the more I realize there had to be something to this.
March 17th, 2003. St. Patrick’s day. I was in my second year of college. I happened to be back home. Not sure why I was home, it was a Monday. Much too early for spring break. It must have been some long weekend for my school, not really sure. This time I was taking a short walk around my old neighborhood. I remember watching a Cardinal fly overhead. The vibrant red bird was enthralling. As previously stated, the climate during this time of year is still cold and snow-covered. The splash of color a Cardinal provides against the white landscape is always a welcomed sight. Sound gone again. No more vehicle noises, no sound of wind whipping through the trees. This is the first time I literally stopped in my tracks. I tried to take in my surroundings. What set this off? I focused so sharply on my hearing. I tried to hear this time. It was futile, of course. As with the prior occasions, the sound returned within just a few-minute window. Now I’ve become more aware and questioning of why this was happening. I checked my mental state. Not sad this time. Just.. strange. I felt like I needed to get back inside my room. I didn’t want to be outside. In case something.. bad was coming. Nothing did, thankfully. Not to me personally at least.
Life goes on. Approximately 15 years of it. 15 years of having normal hearing. Getting home from work after a 16-hour day, it happened again as I threw my work bag on a chair as I walked inside my own home. It’s been so long this time that I had completely forgotten about my intermittent loss of hearing events. I should have turned the news on. I should have gone right to my computer or phone to google if anyone else had this issue. Would have, should have, could have. Before I went to bed, dead tired, I glanced at date on my phone before I plugged it in for the night. October 1st, 2017.
Almost three years later. May 25th, 2020. I work in a profession that was changed forever that day. While I was stationed downtown to try to keep the peace, cities across the United States burned. I couldn’t hear a thing for the entire night. Several nights in fact. I thought this would be the time I properly became deaf. Thank God I didn’t, and my hearing returned back to normal after seven brutal days.
I finally scheduled myself to see an ENT Doctor. Several tests later and it was for nothing. Inconclusive would have been a better outcome than hearing “umm, we just don’t know.” He said my hearing was normal. It’s declined, sure, as with most people getting to my age. But according to the professionals it wasn’t anything to be concerned with. My level of concern was high though. I couldn’t keep ignoring this.
I wish I had a better ending to my random deaf events. The lack of sound is terrifying. When I’m in this state I can’t even hear my own heart beating. I can’t hear the circulation of blood coursing through my body. I wish I could better explain what this feels like.
There is one day that I forgot to mention. I don’t know how I forgot. I was sitting in second period. Health class. Senior year in high school. We were all stunned. No one knew what to make of this, no one knew what was happening. Our teacher had no answers. Seeing adults being afraid was awful. They couldn’t even pretend to be brave. No one’s gone through anything like this. And to this day no one has since, at least not in our country. The date was September 11th, 2001.