Indecisively Restless: On Being Left Handed

This could easily be a Bitchin' About post about people who are not left-handed but rather than upset 90% of you I'll tell you instead what being left handed is like.

I've been left-handed forever so I've grown used to it. My dad is left-handed and my mom isn't crazy so they never hit me, trying to force me to use my right hand.

I don't remember ever having a problem writing when I was younger but I could not cut anything to save my life. I'm pretty sure if scissors and cutting was an actual class I would have failed. I remember HATING cutting anything that wasn't a straight line. I never cut those either but instead I would fold and lick and tear a nice straight line. I do remember being chastised by right-handed teachers who couldn't understand how cutting a star-shape could be so difficult. Why was it so difficult? Surely not because those shitty children's scissors that have the blunt-ended tip work well at the best of times. Put them in a left-handers hand and they are a weapon only to construction paper.

I seriously doubt you righties could even use these properly.

When I was able to take stuff home I'd have my mother cut things for me. She'd make fun of me but she couldn't stand seeing my horribly wrinkled and torn crafts. I hate using scissors, to this day, for anything more intricate than a line.

As I got older I would get made fun of for the weird way I write. Because I cannot see what I'm writing and I'd rather not have the spiral notebook poke into my wrist I turn my notebook (and paper) 90 degrees.

This is how I write. Apparently it's the least-seen, hardest to learn and is considered upside down.

It makes it look like I'm writing sideways but it's really just more comfortable and so much easier than writing the way other left-handers do with a weird crooked wrist.

Obama is left handed and writes the weird way which I just learned is called crab claw.

This also helped lessen the ink smudging. There was no wrist sliding across the newly fresh inked words causing them to smudge illegibly. I could never quite figure out how to draw left handed though. You'd be able to spot mine when hung on the wall because the markers would be smudged across the poster. I even tried drawing upside down and starting on the right side of the page. Didn't matter. I always managed to mess it up anyway.

Funnily enough John is also left-handed and never has this problem. Even without this product which is the stupidest thing I have ever seen.

It's called a SmudgeGuard. Ugh.

My worst experience with being left handed came when I played softball (my one and only year of which I quit halfway through). Because I wrote with my left hand I was expected to throw and hit left handed too. So I got a left-handed glove and went up to bat (all strikes by the way) left handed. Besides the fact that I hated it, I sucked horribly. It wasn't until years later that I realized I threw and caught better (and more comfortably) with my right hand.

Yup, that's right. I'm not a true-blue left-hander. I am what is known as mixed handed. Most people think that when you're able to use both hands you are ambidextrous but by definition you must be able to use them both equally. I cannot. This is never more apparent when I'm lifting weights. One arm is definitely stronger than the other.

But I love being left handed, mainly because it does force you to get comfortable using your right hand as well. Things like can openers, computer mice, 10-key, etc are all better down with right hands. I can also cut my food without having to switch utensils around, saving myself a good five seconds per cut compared to you right-handers.

Are there things left-handers inherently do better? Oh you mean besides art, mental illness, anger and liquor? I don't really know. We probably read better upside down because whenever we use pens/pencils the advertisement is made so that right handed people can read it while using it.

In high school I had a left-handed pencil. I could read it while using it. I loved it.

But still, it's fun to have opposite hand writing contests with right-handers because you guys are just all too comfortable in your right-handed world and are horrible at it.

Here are some fun links for or about lefties: