The week before our wedding, I broke my right wrist in three places playing softball at the company picnic.
She drove me to the ER wearing the lobster oven mitt because she couldn't find her keys and grabbed the first thing on the counter.
For six weeks after the ceremony, I couldn't sign my own name on anything. Cards, checks, the marriage certificate had my left-handed scrawl like a stranger's.
I practiced every morning at the kitchen table. Loops and lines, my hand shaking like a kid learning cursive. She'd sit across from me reading the paper, not watching, but close.
The first word I managed clearly was her name. I wrote it on the back of a receipt and slipped it under her coffee mug.
We divorced four years later. But I kept writing left-handed even after the cast came off. Something about starting over from scratch stuck with me.
Last month I wrote a letter to someone new. My left hand was steady the whole time. I realized I'd been practicing for this longer than I knew.