Explore

Tomatoes (College Essay)

I hate tomatoes. The pungent, sour flavor, along with the revolting, mushy texture dominate my tongue in any meal that I have them in. I am keen to take tomatoes off of my order when ordering food from a restaurant’s mobile app or website. If a given restaurant does not have an option to deselect tomatoes, I leave a comment where it is provided for me, telling them that if there is a tomato on my burger, I will be asking for a new one. This confident display of candor travels only through written-word, however, as if I were unfortunate enough to be in a situation where I was forced to verbalize my order to a waiter, I would relay only the bare minimum amount of words to receive the meal. The verbal addition of “no tomato” is just added embarrassment and demoralization, so I prefer facing the lesser demon and eating the burger with tomato.

When faced with situations where my words carry the weight of dictating the outcome of a particular circumstance, my vocal mechanisms tense up. This is not caused by an anxiety disorder, or I would not be able to handle the pressure of playing varsity quarterback for the largest high school in Connecticut while balancing the workload of 7 AP classes through my latter 2 years of high school. Rather, this is my debilitating speech impediment.

Because of my stammer, I always feel uncomfortable while talking. Stimulating this feeling is the concerned, almost pitying look that people give me when they hear me speak for the first time. One time, specifically, I found myself shaking and contorting my face to squeeze out the difficult “P” sound beginning my name in front of a Chick-Fil-A employee, who proceeded to scream for my help because she thought I was having a seizure in my car. Talking has always been a chore for me ––elucidated by a conscious, mental sigh that reads “here we go again” every time I am dragged into contributing to a conversation. My stutter follows me everywhere. Unlike other stressors, there is no temporary escape from my speech. People look to parties, going out to dinner, and sitting at a cafeteria table with friends to relieve them of life’s downpour of responsibility, but these are the situations I dread the most. Controlling my stuttering lips is a waning, exhausted mind, and I am so tired of being so tired.

It has been at times where my mind has been the most fatigued, nonetheless, where I have grown the most as an individual in accepting my disability as a part of who I am. I am not Patrick, but rather P-P-P-Patrick when introducing myself verbally, and this may be the case for my entire life. My wedding vow may not sound as assertive as I would want it to be and may sound like “I-I-I d-d-do”, but that does not mean I would love my wife any less than saying a crisper “I do.” My acceptance, however, is not capitulation. I devote many hours a week practicing my speech at home by talking to myself in the mirror and having nightly conversations with my parents. I will even bring my dog aside and have a conversation with him to work on my speech. I am never able to say the difficult “G” and “B” sounds in social situations as fluently as when I say “good boy” to end a conversation with my dog. It is in such low-stress situations where my speech is the most fluent, and where I find the most hope and optimism, as I believe one day I will have complete liberation of speech, and my name will finally be just Patrick.

Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.

Try clicking the ··· in the right corner or using a keyboard shortcut (

CtrlP

) instead.