The title here pretty much sums up my feelings towards how our flight over to New Zealand went.

Born deaf, the global pandemic did not make my hearing any easier. My hearing loss has recently worsened to severe in one side and moderate to severe in the other. Although, that is a story for another time.

There are some voices I can understand better than others, such as my partners and my parents. I’ve become accustomed to all the tones in their voices, and thus it is easier for me to hear their voices under a mask.

So you might be able to understand how I felt going into an airport, barely able to understand anything that was said to me by anyone other than Colin. My eyes looked afraid, and I know someone did try and question me on why I appeared agitated and distressed.

They weren’t aware that I had left my family, and my home country (to live) for the first time. I was quite heart broken to leave them in this way.

Colin was my ears for the entirety of the flight. Any time we spoke to any border officials or any time any of the cabin crew tried to communicate. When I was separated from him I didn’t like it and became distressed about not being able to hear.

I have to give credit to the airline staff though as they would try and talk directly to me and look me in the eye. Even though I couldn’t hear them. That was good service, and I am sure in an unmasked situation it would have been one of the best flights I’ve been on.

I didn’t eat much on the plane, but I did drink occasionally. It was difficult to relax, especially on the second flight. There was little to no space between passengers who weren’t social distancing. I got 3.5 hours sleep in the whole 26+ hours that we were flying. Colin did manage more, and he was more awake than I was.

Once we had finally got off the plane we had to present ourselves to border officials. I found comfort to finally hear New Zealand accents.

Showing the Immigration staff my visa made me nervous. There was still part of me that worried I was going to be sent back to the UK, even though we had been through the visa process months before. I need not have worried though as there was no issue.

Once we were finally in our quarantine hotel, that was when I was able to relax, and my distress was more or less gone. We didn’t know what awaited us in the two weeks to follow, but we were glad to finally be on the ground and safely.

Credit to the photograph on this page goes to Kyle Smith via Unsplash

Sign up to receive emails from A Letter from Elena: here.

Email me if you would like to discuss anything I have written in this blog article.