For me, the goal was to talk without a lot of hardship. I had lived with hardship while talking for so long.
I wanted to say what I wanted, when I wanted, to whom I wanted. To talk to someone, make a call, say my name, or take an opportunity without my speech deciding so much of my life.
I used to wish to be normal
As a kid, I kept making the same birthday wish. Everybody was gathered around, and I would close my eyes and wish to be normal. What I meant was my speech.
I also wanted to stop constantly worrying about the next word I would have to say. I wanted the pressure out of my chest. Please God, just let me be normal. That is how I used to think about it.
Looking back, I would have wished for increased fluency. People think and worry about all kinds of things. There isn't one normal life I had to turn myself into. I wanted to speak more freely and have less of my day swallowed up by the speech.
The change I wanted in my life
Work, friends, dates, ordering food: those were the situations I cared about. I wanted to be able to take part. That was the point of the speaking work for me.
I've asked what a little more fluency would change in someone's life. What would improvement mean to you, even while you still stuttered? I wanted as much as I could get. I also want an improvement that makes you happy.
What I mean when I talk about my speech now
I have said that I am fluent and that I still work on myself. I care about having high confidence in my speech. There are also moments when I am less smooth. Both are in the things I have said about my life.
I still bring it into the next conversation. Being able to do that with much less hardship is what I spent so long working toward.
Being able to express myself
When I explained word substitution, I said that saying what I wanted did not always have to mean saying the exact word. I had to be able to express myself.
I described a phone example where another word let me finish the sentence and get the whole thought out. Being able to say what I meant was the point of that example. I wanted to keep talking.
One of the words I wanted to say was “no”
In a short note about seventh grade, I wrote that I couldn't yell the word “no” to stop someone from embarrassing me.