What?

It seems like the world is getting noisier. Lately I've noticed that if I'm watching a movie on TV in the evening, I have to close the apartment windows in order to hear the dialogue properly - the grinding roar of traffic literally drowns it out. And walking down the street with a friend, I feel like we have to almost strain our voices to have a conversation over the traffic and other street noises. I wonder if I'm getting more sensitive, or maybe losing hearing in the upper registers now that I'm old. I read that this does happen. Some men literally can't hear their wives any more as they get older, since their voices are higher-pitched and those are the frequencies that are first to go. Anyway it makes me impatient with city living. I just want to be somewhere quiet and peaceful, where I don't have to strain.