You write with your left hand?

I didn’t know you’re a lefty.

You are writing with the wrong hand.

You are writing upside down.

You write weird.

Look at the Southpaw.

These are just some of the comments I have heard in my life when people see me writing. I personally have never understood what the big deal was – yes, I am left handed.

Early on in my school years I had a teacher who constantly told me I had to write with the correct hand, my right hand. She would embarrass me if front of my classmates and make me put my pencil in my right hand which was a huge struggle for me. I would go home, cry to my mom and tell her what was happening at school. Now, my mom was not one to argue with any of the school staff, they were smart; they were figures of authority. But I was upset, I was falling behind and so this made my mom upset…very upset. She went to have a “conversation” with my teacher and ever since then I was able to write with the correct hand for me.

I looked up Left Handed on Thesaurus.com to see what other words were used to describe being left handed. I was surprised & somewhat disheartened but mainly amused to see how negative most of the descriptions were.

• Ambilevous – having the ability to perform manual skill tasks with both hands.
• Awkward – Lacking skill or dexterity. Lacking grace or ease in movement. Lacking social graces or manners.
• Clumsy – Awkward in movement or action; without skill or grace. Awkwardly done or made; unwieldy; ill-contrived.
• Dubious – Doubtful; marked by or occasioning doubt. Of doubtful quality or propriety; questionable. Of uncertain outcome.
• Gauche – Lacking social grace, sensitivity, or acuteness; awkward; crude; tactless.
• Insincere – not sincere; not honest in the expression of actual feeling; hypocritical.
• Maladroit – lacking in adroitness; unskillful; awkward; bungling; tactless.
• Sinister – threatening or portending evil, harm, or trouble; ominous. Bad, evil, base, or wicked; fell. Unfortunate; disastrous; unfavorable.
• Sinistral – of, relating to, or on the left side; left (opposed to dextral). left-handed. (of certain gastropod shells) coiling counterclockwise, as seen from the apex.
• Southpaw – a person who is left-handed. Sports: a player who throws with the left hand, especially a pitcher or Boxing, a boxer who leads with the right hand and stands with the right foot forward, using the left hand for the most powerful blows.

Something to chew on – If the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body and the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body then left handers are the only ones in their right mind. Right?

Here’s to all of the flattened-out spirals on notebooks, ink smudges on the side of our hand, bumping elbows at the dinner table, sitting in right-handed desks in school and learning how to use a right-handed scissor.

When dining out, I get dibs on the chair at the end of the table, so I can move my left elbow freely without bumping into anyone and oh, by the way, I like my handwriting!

Happy Left Handers Day!