I'm Always Almost There

I have trouble with speaking. It’s not with a stutter, although I do trip over my words a lot. It’s more of a conscious anxiety. It’s not easy to explain because I know my mouth works after a good head slap or two but it’s like the words get stuck from my brain to my tongue. It’s not a conscious decision, the words just shoot out of my head like the way my blood pressure and pulse skyrocket when I try to speak. I’m not a “quiet” person, I just get quieter. I know I could ask for that ketchup from the waiter, but can I? is the issue.  

I like talking but sometimes my words come out backward and upside down. I literally will speak backward. Instead of milk and cookies, it’s cilk and mookies. Someone once told me that comes from me being ambidextrous, but I think that was a pile of made-up crap. I can’t do it on command, which is somewhat of a bummer but that’s something that I don’t think I’ll ever stop doing. I’m fluent in stammering and speaking backwards.

When I go outside, into the bright scary world that is full of strangers and people that I need to say excuse me to, I normally have a spokesperson of sorts. Sometimes it’s my sister, other times friends, or even my mom. My sister says she’s my emotional support friend. She’d be one hundred perfect right. I usually let someone else do the talking unless I’m super invested in the conversation. Even then it depends on what it might be that we’re talking about and if it interests me. But with a stranger? Kiss my words goodbye as they exit the door that’s somewhere from my frontal lobe to my tongue. 

People who don’t have this “talking” problem don’t really know what it's like. It’s a real thing and a lot of people say it’s just us being shy but it’s really not. It’s a struggle and we don’t know why we do it, we just do. Let me try to explain it to you. Imagine you go up to someone to ask them for anything, I’ll let you choose, for me, it's mostly condiments. I know, it’s stupid but a real problem, just one of many in a world where you have to ask for a lot of stuff from people that silently judge you or at least you think they’re judging you.

I’ve lived on this earth for almost two decades and low and behold condiments are my downfall. Can you hear the sarcasm? I will start to panic over asking for a fork or a napkin. Anyway, I’ll go up to the extremely nice employee at Chick Fil A and they’d smile….

MALFUNCTION!! WARNING! MALFUNCTION!! VOICE TERMINATED!

I CAN'T SPEAK. It won’t work! Then the panic and scenarios come in. You have 0.235890 seconds to say something back before it turns into a full-blown awkward situation. AND GOD FORBID YOU DRAW ATTENTION TO YOURSELF. What would the other strangers think?! What would the family think?! What would the church think?! The scenarios start coming in now. Voices and problems and rabbit holes that go from the whole thing going correctly to somehow you spill the drink on yourself and embarrass yourself then everyone starts laughing and pointing at you and eventually you swirl into a black hole of chaos. Or….something like that. My active imagination does not help in situations like this. 

So. 

That’s just the first part! Once you manage to stare at the person for half a century, you finally ask for what you need. Be it: ketchup, napkins, fork, whatever it might be without passing out you can move onto step two. Saying thank you. Again we go through the same process in 0.27318 seconds and your blood pressure rises so quickly then drops to the point that you actually get a chill down your spine.  

Oh, and y’all know how Chick Fil A makes you wait in line to get a refill? I would rather someone cut off my arm instead of that. Almost literally. I will stand for hours waiting for them to notice me instead of saying excuse me. 

And the worst thing is when you practice over and over in your head before the moment arrives and then...you stutter or get that lisp again from back when you were like three. Where do the other freakin letters come from? “Thanbk yyou.” It’s the bloody worst. 

Also, don’t get me started on asking people for help in the mall or the grocery store. I would rather walk the store five billion times then ask someone and have a panic attack behind their back as I wait for them to notice me. I’ll turn into the best dang detective on my own, I need no help. None. Nada. Won’t even look a employee in the eye. 

I’m always almost there. I’m always this close to saying the words. 

Here’s the kicker. I like talking. I enjoy talking to people about a common subject and I think that it’s fun when people are giving compliments. I might go out somewhere and see a stranger and like their shirt, purses, shoes, or even just their face.

 So I try to pluck up the courage to say something, I really do, but it is really scary. Anxiety just grips your throat and you try to break free but it’s just easier to swallow the words or complement and deal with the guilt later in bed. I like your bag. Your shirt is cute. You have pretty eyes. Sometimes I still say the complement to that person in my head and hope I get brownie points in Heaven. Other times they catch me staring too much and give me the stink eye.  

I have to be careful with compliments though because when you get tongue-tied and backward words mixed together it turns into this one time at a school dance where I meant to say to this girl, “I love your personality.” and “You dance really well.” Instead, it came out as “I love you.” I did not know this girl. She didn’t know me and I know for a fact I weirded her out. I never saw her again but I hope she’s not afraid of random strangers coming up to her saying, “I love you.”

And sometimes the words come out really well and eloquently on the off chance that it’s a red full moon on the winter solstice on Friday the 13th. 

However as I looked at my best friend since fifth grade, who I’d had a crush on for several years, the words came easily. 

“Sure, we can just be friends.” 

Sometimes... it’s better not to speak at all.