For whatever stupid reason I decided I was going to use my non-dominant hand for the week: my right hand. My life as a lefty has been always been a struggle. My left hand is always covered in ink, I can’t write on a dry erase board, scissors are a nightmare, the list of left-handed problems can go on for a while. I thought I could pull some metaphoric meaning for doing daily tasks with my right hand, which I suppose I did, but after lots of struggle.
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First things first, my watch needed to be switched. If you didn’t know, you wear your watch on your non-dominant hand. My arm felt like it was getting suffocated since I’m not used to having anything around my left wrist. My right arm felt too light, plus I kept looking at the wrong arm when someone asked for the time.
Putting my hair up felt weird. Every time I’d do a bun it just felt incorrect so I’d do it three or four times before giving up and wearing my hair down. I don’t know how people do this right-handed thing.
I didn’t have to worry about taking notes until Monday morning and not being able to hold a pen was frustrating. I honest to God couldn’t even figure out how to hold the pen in a comfortable way, I kept changing my hand position to no avail. My hand was tired and cramping, and it took forever to write my notes. It looked like a four-year-old wrote them. This problem was repeated again on Wednesday morning, but I was more confident in my writing. It was still terrible, but I at least knew how to hold the pen.
I played mini golf and laser tag over the weekend. I didn’t win. I’m already bad at mini golf, but using my opposite hand made it worse. During laser tag my aim was off, my hand got tired since I was trying to pull the trigger more often to make up for my bad aim, I spent most of my time on the defense, running, I was very sweaty at the end of it.
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Wednesday night I decided I was going to give myself a pedicure. I’m used to switching hands for my fingers, but painting my toes with my right hand went so poorly I stopped after doing my first three toes. I will not be picturing my failure.
Everything with my right hand made me feel off. Holding a coffee cup felt off. Holding my phone felt strange and it also hurt my hand, it was like holding a tiny weight in my hand. Driving predominately with my right hand made my arm tired. I know I probably sound like a little bitch, but if you don’t use your muscles in one hand your whole life they seriously become weak, this is no joke.
The one upside of doing this is people were ok sitting next to me at the table. I wasn’t hitting my elbow into them anytime I moved to eat.
So what did I gain from this experience? Maybe that inconveniencing yourself every so often makes you a better person…? Change is good?… maybe not that either. Basically, don’t take comfort for granted. This week was tiring, I had thought about how I was going to use my right hand for each activity and I couldn’t just apply the way I used my left hand to the situation. That’s the takeaway; you can’t expect to be able to approach every situation the same way. Even when you have an understanding of a like situation maybe approach it like you haven’t experienced it. I thought transitioning to my right hand would be easier and I was sorely disappointed. Don’t make my mistake, use your dominant hand.