Nobody, for someone who loves writing as much as I do, I’m technically very bad at it.  No, I’m not referring to my unfortunate habits concerning commas and the passive voice.  I’m literally talking about the way that I write.

Back in my youth, when I was first learning how to hold a pencil, I failed spectacularly at it.  Rather than holding it between my thumb and forefinger, and letting it rest gently on my other fingers, I gripped it in my fist and called it a day.  My pinkie and thumb held the tip of the pencil, and the rest of my fingers lined up along its length.  My teacher thought there was cause for alarm.  To correct my error, she gave me a rubber pencil grip.  The problem should have ended there.

But I didn’t see how there was any problem at all.  My handwriting looked fine to me.  I wrote just as quick and neatly as everyone else in my class.  Why couldn’t I hold my pencil however I pleased, if it yielded the same results?  To be honest, my defiance did mostly come from a bruised ego.  I resented being marked as different from my classmates—as defective—by that awful pencil grip that only I had to use.

I refused to bow down to this treatment, and devised a cunning plan to preserve my dignity.  Whenever my teacher was nearby, the grip sat where it was supposed to, and I wrote the correct way.  But whenever she was out of sight, the grip found its way to the very top of my pencil, where I shunned it.

So now I’m stuck holding all of my writing utensils the way I taught myself—the wrong way.  While I do appreciate my younger self’s non-conformist streak, I wonder if I chose the right hill to die on.  Because frankly, my teacher was right: the way I hold my pencil is not great.  My hand always smears ink, I get cramps in my thumb, and writing over a page usually leaves me with a sore wrist.  Since I handwrite all my first drafts, this is especially unhelpful.

You might then wonder why I don’t just learn to write like a normal person.  Well, Nobody, I’m not entirely sure that I could.  I’ve tried, and all of my results have been illegible at best.  I suppose I could keep at it—but like I said, my handwriting’s fine.  And I frankly find re-learning how to write very tedious.

Yes, the way I write is inconvenient.  But it’s also a great conversation starter.  Seriously, you would not believe how many conversations I’ve had that began with someone asking how on earth I’m able to write like the way that I do.  It is pretty unusual.  I bet that if I was a manic pixie dream girl in a YA novel, it would be the first thing mentioned about me.  So that’s fun.

And Nobody, I must admit that I kind of like the way I hold my pencil.  I feel like my quirk transfers to whatever I write or draw.  It’s like an authentic me has snuck itself in among grammatic conventions and proper proportions. 

Maybe it’s just my irrational statement against “the establishment,” but I feel a certain pride around it too.  I was always a rule-following kid, terrified of disappointing any authority figure.  I’m happy that, for once, I defended my way of doing things (even if my logic was misguided).  I’m still not totally sure why I chose this moment to put my foot down, but I like to think that even then I was far too sensitive about writing feedback.

When you really get down to it, my guess my weird handwriting is sentimental.  It’s a symbol of a little out-of-character-moment that I wish was more in-character.  Because honestly?  I cannot express how proud I was the day my teacher finally gave up, and let me triumph in my bad decision.

Talk again soon, I hope.