HOCKEY IMAGINES: BOOK 2 // REQUESTS CLOSED

#37: CALE MAKAR - #8 COLORADO AVALANCHE

A/N: Guess who is back to school tomorrow? This girl! I am so ready to start back, which is weird because I never am but it is my final semester so that is probably why.

Speaking of schooling. I went to school with Cale Makar! We were in the same high school together, he graduated the year before me but I will always remember seeing him in the hallways and he would always smile to people whoever smiled at him. His uncle also taught me science in grade 10 so that was pretty cool. It is pretty funny going through my year book and seeing him in it twice, I did not realise he would go on the be an NHL player, but it was so cool to see him drafted and actually know someone who is big in the NHL!

But yeah, onto this imagine...

Growing up I knew I was different from everyone around me, but I was still a normal child growing up, being able to do all the things you do as a child. The only thing that made me any different from the rest was my hearing, I am deaf. I remember one day it was there and then the next, it was gone and never returned. I must have been about five years old when it happened, now aged twenty-one it is as much part of me as my arms and legs are.

I was fortunate enough to have loving parents who helped me deal with it. They did everything in their power to make this disability of mine a part of me, not something to hinder me at all. I learned how to read lips, feel the vibrations of movements and sound, paying more attention to my surroundings than the average person does. I did everything I could to 'hear' just like a someone who can hear naturally. My loss of hearing never did stop me from doing anything I set my mind to, in fact it made me want to do the things I have done because I never wanted it to be my downfall. But like always, there are times when I just lose it and I just want to hear everything again.

I get asked a lot of questions when people find out I am deaf. What do I want to hear the most? What was the last thing I heard before I lost my hearing? Isn't the silence peaceful? Truthfully, no it isn't. Not being able to hear a thing is scary, you are always in your own thoughts, never really knowing what is going on unless you focus your attention on what is happening around you. I hear ringing in my ears occasionally, but that is all I will ever hear. But the things I want to hear the most? I want to hear my mother calling my name again or the giggles of me when I laugh at something hilarious. I want to hear the birds chirping as the sun raises in the morning or the simple rustle of the leaves in the wind. I want to hear my father lulling me to sleep like he used to do when I was a child or the bark of my childhood dog. There is just so much I want to hear, but I will never tell anyone what I truly want to hear. Why? Because it makes me sad. I get sad when I see people calling for their significant others, telling them that they love them. I will never get to hear that from the person I will be with, but I know that isn't going to stop me from loving someone whole heartedly.

Relationships are the only thing that I think my hearing will be a problem for us both. I will never get to hear the voice of the person I love. I will never get to hear them say, 'I love you' to me. I will never get to hear the cries of my baby if I ever have one. That scares me, but I know I just need to find that one person who doesn't care for all that, that I will never ever hear them. I just need to find that someone who knows I love them and that they love me despite everything wrong with me. But so far, no one like that has shown up in my life.

And then I got bored of living in the same area and hometown I grew up in. I needed a fresh start, to move somewhere where I could be me and that no one treated me like I was fragile because of my hearing loss. So I moved out to Denver, Colorado to be further away from my family to become dependent on myself. I always loved the mountains and cold weather, I saw it as a win-win situation for myself to move to Colorado. And it was the best decision I ever made for myself. I have been here for a year and I love it, I have a good job that I am happy with, I live in a one bedroom apartment in the downtown area, and I have the freedom that I always wanted. I couldn't have asked for a better time to be happy with me and myself.