While recently signing farm paperwork for my late parents’ estate, I came across some documents with both Mom’s and Dad’s signatures that were dated decades ago.
I ran my finger lightly over the ink they had pressed into the paper, and my mind briefly wandered to their younger years when conservation reserve acres were part of their farm planning.
Their side-by-side signatures were neat and fluid, unlike the halted scribbles their aging fingers had more recently produced.
These two signatures (that became so familiar to me growing up) suggested a youthful optimism for the future, a resolve to tackle life’s adventures as a team.
Mom was a school teacher and her penmanship reflected a commitment to both precision and flair. The letters were evenly spaced, uniformly sized with upper and lower zones reaching equal distance above and below the lines.
Dad’s signature was less so, but reflected a deliberate, no-nonsense manner.
Contemplating this later, I consulted “the all-knowing internet” for the science behind handwriting and what it says about our personalities.
Not surprisingly, big letters indicate outgoing personalities and smaller letters are written by shy introverts.
Similarly, people who space out their letters and words tend to enjoy freedom and independence while those who squeeze words and letters prefer the company of others.
Other findings include:
•Heavy pen pressure suggests tension and anger, while moderate pressure is a sign of commitment, and soft pressure suggests empathy.
•Circles in place of dots on “i”s are playful and childlike.
•Right-slanters are extroverts and left-slanters are introverts (or liars, as some sources suggest).
•Long crosses on “t”s indicate determination, enthusiasm and possibly stubborn tendencies. Short-crossed “t”s reveal laziness. Unless you cross it on the high side, which indicates high goals. Low-crossed “t”s are for low achievers. (Pity the low and short “t” crossers.)
•A widely looped letter shows spontaneity and narrow loops are restrained.
•A short hook on the lower-case “y” means you’re a homebody and a long hook could signal wanderlust.
The list goes on, but of course, considering my own propensity to write very quickly during interviews for stories, I was interested to learn:
•Those who write quickly are “impatient and dislike wasting time.” (Or, they’re news people who need to keep up in an interview.)
•And finally, a legible signature is a “sign of confidence” while an illegible signature is “the mark of a private or hard-to-read person.” (I’m nothing short of a mystery.)
Of course, I knew my parents and didn’t need a handwriting analysis to tell me who they were.
But my fascination with the ink they left on paper tells me something about myself: I still miss them and find comfort in little things that make me feel close to them.