“Brokeness”

It was the theme that drove many of my creative works in the year 2020.

Yet as the world broke apart at the seams, I was healing the cracks of my identity.

“Broken Record” was the poem that explored my frustration as a person with a disability. How I viewed myself and how others viewed me.

A poem that fought against the need to “fixed”, to be “cured” of my disability. To the suprise of others, I do not want to become “normal.” Not only does normalcy does not exist, no matter how advance medical science progresses, it cannot remove the fact that I was born with and grew up with a disability. My disability does not define who I am, but I cannot deny it as a part of my identity and how I experience the world.

It has allowed me to view society through a specific lens, a perspective that is not showcased as often.

During my childhood, I sought to be perfect. Perhaps if I was, others would see me a normal like them.

But normalcy isn’t perfection. No one is perfect, we are all rough around the edges.

There is so much I could say about the amount of thought I put behind the poem, why I called it “broken record.” I think among the many ways a broken record visualizes the difficulty of communicating with others with hearing loss, the fact that it is a medium that produces sound is significant.

I love music like the next person. I may not have any personal history of using and collecting vintage records, but I grew up using CDs in the early 2000s. Of course my hearing loss prevents me from enjoying music fully, I tend to mishear lyrics all the time. However, that has not stopped me from enjoying the melody, the base, the rhythm the beat.

I am grateful that I have bluetooth hearing aids that allow me to switch to my Spotify playlist on my phone or laptop while I work.

All of this to demonstrate that there is more diversity within the hearing loss community. Not everyone is deaf, mute, or can sign. I would like to say most of us, just struggle to hear certain frequencies or out of one ear.

Overall, I am happy to have published my first creative piece in four years. After writing articles and essays for newspapers, it is nice to finally write something creative.

You can pick up a physical copy of “Broken Record” in The Varsity’s RAW magazine, available at all news stands on St. George campus.