Am I Right or Left-Handed?

I always considered myself left-handed. It was never really tough to say “I write with my left hand, so I must be left-handed.” It’s getting more and more difficult to say that now. There really isn’t anything I can’t do with both hands, except write in cursive with my right.

I’ve known about this ambidexterity for a while, but something happened a few weeks ago that solidified my uncertainty (If it’s even possible to be resolute in one’s uncertainty. That sounds like an oxymoron). I was walking down the hall at work with a binder in my right hand. A friend walked by going the other direction with a cup of yogurt in his hand. He passed me, then stopped and asked if I wanted the yogurt, since he was traveling and wouldn’t have the opportunity to eat it before it expired. I accepted, and he tossed it to me. Even though my left hand was free and my right was not, I still subconsciously transferred my binder to my left hand while the yogurt was in the air and caught it with my right hand. This really confused me because one would expect that if I was left handed and my left hand was free I wouldn’t bother to move the binder and catch with the right. One would also think that I would use a softball glove on my right hand and throw with my left if I was left-handed.

I guess you could say I’m suffering from a chirality crisis. I can do pretty much everything with both hands. I’ve tried throwing Frisbees with both hands and had surprising success. I’ve even started to practice writing with my right hand just to get the hang of it and be able to write with both hands. I can learn a dance move and then do its mirror with only a little thought. Most sports that require equipment I usually play with the more readily available right-handed equipment, but when things are symmetrical I have no preference.

When people ask, I’ll still say I’m left-handed, because it has the implicit meaning of ambidexterity without the cocky connotation of the word ambidextrous. After all, being left-handed in a right-handed world means you learn to do things right-handed and therefore have at least some ambidexterity, and I don’t know that I am truly ambidextrous and not just capable of wiggling my appendages on both sides the same amount.

Anyway, I guess you could say I’m a mostly balanced individual with a mostly inconsequential crisis.

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