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From: Russ Hicks
Date: 06 Oct 2004
Time: 21:42:40 -0500
Remote Name: 24.1.53.111
Hi Sophie, (Forgive the paragraph formatting, something is wrong ... but we'll survive...) Join the crowd of the confused! I was never so shocked and confused in my life as when my old girlfriend didn't even remember I stuttered! And it took me a LONG time to really figure out what was happening. In the final analysis it was ME who had a perspective out of whack, not her! And that was a pretty bitter pill to swallow too. How on earth could something that important to me be so insignificant to her? I just couldn't believe it. But the FACTS speak for themselves. OUR entire world revolves around our stuttering - at least mine did. It absolutely DEFINES WHO WE ARE! But she was looking at it through entirely different eyes. To her, my stuttering, severe as it was, was a pretty forgettable nit to her. That still makes me shake my head in disbelief, but she's not the only person who I've run across like that. A lot of people remember I stuttered, but it was no really big deal to them. I was a pretty good student too, and that was far more important to them. I'm not sure there's a good parallel here, but something like cataracts may be close. My cousin had severe cataracts all his life and it was pretty life limiting to him - I guess. He was virtually BLIND! Talk about life altering! But did we spend hours discussing his cataracts? No... because I frankly wasn't particularly interested. We had too much OTHER things do to than harp on things that weren't interesting to me. I had good vision. As crass as it sounds, I could have cared less about his cataracts. That was HIS problem, not mine. People are really self centered, especially in their youth. At least I was. It's just part of being human, I guess. Same thing with stuttering. People who don't stutter (with some exceptions of course) don't really care about our stuttering. It's not that they are embarrassed or uncomfortable talking about it, it's just that they honestly aren't interested. Kinda humbling, isn't it? As a practical guide, the first twenty years of class reunions can be pretty "uppity." "I'm the president and CEO of my company, what are YOU the president of? Only a VP? Too bad...!" Gag! But beginning at your 20th or 25th reunion, people become really NICE! You'll enjoy them more and more as the years roll by. And your stuttering will fade into insignificance. There's just a LOT more things that are so much more important in life than that... Good luck - and keep me posted! Russ russhicks@mail.com