Left Hand, Poor Hand

Hello… How have y’ all been? It’s been a really long while yeah? Got some free time today, so I decided to just drop by… Well, lemme just go ahead and write this

So, what’s this with the left hand? I guess we will find out in just a bit…

So, a while back, while paying for my ride about a month back or so, a 100 naira note fell from my purse and someone who happened to be passing by saw it, helped me pick it up and handed It over to me. He seemed older, but that didn’t matter, really. I thanked him and reached for the money which he stretched out towards me, and when I was about taking it, he took it back… I smiled and for the first time, really, I looked up to see his face clearly, to probably see if its someone I know and is trying to "play" with me. Well, he didn’t look like someone I knew, but I smiled anyways because well, these days, I can’t trust my brain to keep record of faces…

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He tried handing the money to me again, I reached for it, and he took it back, this time, it seemed a bit annoying, and I really was willing to just walk away if he had tried it again. I mean, the main reason I stayed till the second time was because I didn’t wanna appear rude or that I didn't appreciate the fact that he "helped" me, it was then that it clicked, “I am using my left hand”. I guess it clicked because he tried using gestures to tell me…

My right hand was busy, my attention wasn’t even there, I was tired! Well, figuring out what the issue was, I just switched hands, got my stuff, thank him and well, headed my way. That's his belief and so also the belief of so many people around here

Using the left hand to do certain things in this part of the world is often seen as a taboo, it always appears that the right hand has its roles and the left too, does. It often is sad, really. Because left-handed people aren’t given many options or freedom of being themselves, comfortably…

Several kids have been spanked a few times, just so they can leave the “bad habit” of using the left hand to do certain things, like collecting something from someone, eating or holding things that are supposed to be precious. Teaching a child what hand is supposed to be for what seem to be the first things to teach a growing child, but then, a child will always go for what appears to be natural and most comfortable to him, until he starts growing, and everyone makes him feel that there is something wrong with him/her and he starts struggling to fit in…

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And oh, even the right-handed kids aren’t left out! As a kid, I would naturally use my right hand to get rid of excess mucus from my nose whenever I have catarrh, and whether I am using a tissue paper or not, I get scolded for using that “sacred” had to do such stuff. I mean, I will wash the hand when I am done, right? I have heard people also say that they can’t eat together with people who happen to use their right hand to do such things….

I just can’t seem to place my fingers around this much discrimination between two parts of the body, who are supposed to be equal and support each other. I mean, even the right hand won't sever the body optimally without the use of the left sometimes, yeah? It's funny though, how the use of cutleries is accepted by most people (some people still ain't cool with it) even though one includes the left hand while using them…

It’s a hard life for most left-handed people around, I believe there is so much pressure to fit it and act in an acceptable way, trying to distort their own biological and genetic build up…

When someone acts in a weird way, or just in a way that most people will see as “not normal” (eccentric?), it wouldn’t be strange to hear comments like “why are you acting like a left-handed person”. Clearly, the left-handed people aren’t seen as smart or “normal” enough. But heck, who needs to be normal?

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Most of the left-handed people I have met (4 or so) happened to have the most beautiful handwriting and a few even really smart and intelligent. Well, the only issue I had with one was her having to occupy the whole desk while writing…

I believe the fact that one hand is more dominant than the other doesn’t make the other any less. They both are hands, and whichever one happens to be dominant in one, we should be open enough to accept it and let the other support and if the two happen to function equally, that's still cool!

Actually, I have tried learning to write with my left hand when I was a bit younger, because I thought it was cool. Well, the writing was horrible, but aside from that, “I admire left-handedness” wasn’t something I could say out loud, because to a few people, being left-handed is a deformity. But yeah, I do admire that, and its no deformity! Its the display of the diversity and uniqueness of us all…

It really is sad that most of these left-handed people have to deal with the stress of “changing” (which, well, never gets to really happen), because the older folks often times think they are just practicing a bad habit, or they have something inside of them that well, somehow needs to be corrected. I guess even I, for the most part, though they were less….

Over the years, I have come to understand that a hand is a hand, and one being more comfortable to use one other than the "popular" doesn't make him less, but infact, beautiful.