I love skiing! Its one of my top passions. My brothers and sisters and I had an awesome skiing holiday over December 08. We went to Canada and Lake Tahoe on the edge of California and Nevada state.
In Lake Tahoe we skied at Heavenly (highly recommend the mountain). Heavenly has 94 runs, a breathtaking view of the lake, close to 10 meters of annual snow fall (!) and runs on the California and on the Nevada side. One of the black diamond runs has the following warning message at the top of it:
You can die - this is your decision point!
Its a tricky black, steep with lots of moguls and ice. Needless to say with a sign like that we had to do it!
I was reminded of this sign at dinner with new friends. The topic of skiing and snowboarding came up with discussions about great places to ski in North America. I badly wanted to share this story about the sign, but couldn't due to the 'd' in 'decision' and 'die'. Couldn't get d's out on the day :-(.
The frustration with stuttering is that you build up rapport and friendships with people by communicating stories, experiences and feelings. Having a block can seriously limited this communication.
That night also become my decision point for my speech. It was such a frustrating evening, there was so much I wanted to say and only managed to say a fraction of what was on my mind. My sisters had to jump in and help me out. I was sitting next to a beautiful lady at the table who I had just met and wanted to strike up a conversation with. I wanted to get to know her better but couldn't get the words I needed out. So that evening was the turning point, I decided to attend speech therapy, work through self-therapy and also admit that I am a person who stutters.
