My trip to England was a whirlwind of excitement, feelings and emotion. I met people for the first time that I had only communicated with via social media. It was very exciting to do this, but also scary and overwhelming.

Meeting Lisa at the Airport in London was surreal. As I walked out of the Customs area, I was thinking so many things: how will I know her? Will she really be there? What will it be like? What will we do? What will we say?

The arrival area was packed. It was a throng of people. And then I saw her. She recognized me, she was waving and she had her camcorder. As we approached, all my fears dropped away and we just hugged each other, looked at each other and then hugged again.

I was meeting Lisa for the first time and was to stay at her house for the week. I flew over 3000 miles to visit a new country and meet people face-to-face that I felt that I already knew. This took a lot of trust. On both our parts. It was Lisa’s first time ever meeting another person face-to-face who stutters. Wow! I know that had to be hard. I could tell and she honestly said that a few times.

It is hard to put into words what we felt and experienced all week. On our last night, I asked Lisa to be brave and talk with me about how the week was, and try indeed to put some of those feelings into words. We recorded it, which was brave for both of us. But our talking about it expresses it perfectly, so much better than if I just wrote about it. We were both honest and real, and that’s what it is all about. I think Lisa “made room for her stuttering” this week.

Thank you Lisa for being you! Thank you Tone for filming this for us! There will be much more on this blog this week, from Tone, Lisa, and Ridwan I hope.

And I will write about our experiences meeting each other, feeling welcomed in the UK, attending a BSA support meeting and meeting Sheila on our last day. Too much! So brilliant!

Stuttering is stuttering no matter where we are! We share that common thread, no matter how far apart we are.