Life on Delay

by John Hendrickson

I understand that my stutter may make you cringe, laugh, recoil. I know my stutter can feel like a waste of time—of yours, of mine—and that it has the power to embarrass both of us. And I’ve begun to realize that the only way to understand its power is to talk about it.

How do you make peace with the shame of stuttering? What do you do with all the anger? The resentment? The fear? How do you accept an aspect of yourself that you’re taught at such an early age to hate?

Have you ever told a stutterer to take their time? Next time you see them, ask how “take your time” feels. “Take your time” is a polite and loaded alternative to what you really mean, which is Please stop stuttering. Yet an alarming amount of speech therapy boils down to those three words.

Nothing shaped my understanding of culture, of humor, of life more than my nightly Simpsons dinner.

He’s just like me fr!