During the month of November, I’ll be participating in National Blog Post Month, where I’ll publish a post every single day. Sometimes, like today, I’ll use prompts. This one I wrote in about five minutes.

Today’s prompt: Do you write in cursive?

I journal. Sometimes, I journal a lot, pages and pages at a time. Sometimes, there are weeks between the times I’m truly able to sit down and pour myself out. I don’t usually write about things that happened that day, or grocery lists for the next trip to the store, or my thoughts on the latest movie that came out. It’s not a 16-year-old’s diary, right? Sometimes, the pages are full of prayers, pleas to the Lord for one thing or another, one friend or family member who needs a touch from Him. Other times, I’m processing something that’s happened, something I’ve read, or something I heard on a podcast or in a sermon. But one thing has been consistent in my journals for years.

My handwriting.

I can look back at journals from college (now ten years ago) and immediately recognize my handwriting as if I’d just written on those pages yesterday. Typically, my heart-outpouring scrawl is a mostly cursive, quickly slurred jumble of letters that is readable, but may require some deciphering. I frequently leave out a letter in the blend of loops that is a longer word. I also slur words together, as if I’m dictating someone who’s had to much too drink. I also have a couple of letters I rarely write in proper cursive style (s’s, for example, and uppercase G’s). I’ll stop a word right in the middle to write an “s” in “print” instead of writing it in cursive.

I think the way this handwriting evolved was when I got to college, and needed to write a lot very quickly. When I took notes in high school, my writing varied depending on my mood – sometimes a lovely cursive, sometimes all caps (something I’d seen my mom do on grocery lists and such), and sometimes a neat and tidy print. But those things mostly happened when I had extra time, and wasn’t in a rush. My slippery cursive-print blend evolved from my necessity to get information (or feelings) onto the paper before the ideas fell out of my head again. I still love writing, or even just doodling my name, particularly with a fancy pen. And, by the way, fancy pen for me doesn’t constitute something like a fountain pen. It really just means one that doesn’t blot, might be a lovely color of blue, and won’t smear onto the side of my hand.

Because I’m left-handed. I know you’ve seen someone with lead or ink smeared on the outside pad of their left hand before… right? I used to hate coloring with markers because I couldn’t keep my hand from getting covered in ink. My OCD goes way back to my early childhood days, trying not to be messy. And I still don’t like it.