A few years ago I was signing some paperwork with my mother.
She saw how I signed them and exclaimed, “You sign just like your dad!” My
mother and father’s signatures are at opposite ends of the signature spectrum.
My mother has an elegant signature, much like the cursive writing we learned in
elementary school. My father’s signature is written fast and appears to be a
disorganized mess. In his defense, if you examine it you can see there’s
actually method to the madness, and signing this way makes his signature
distinct and hard to duplicate. My own signature falls between the two. It
starts elegant, like my mother, but degenerates with each letter. I remember
signing some sort of form with one of my professors back in college. I told him
my full name, and he replied, “I never would have guessed that based on your
signature.” I feel like my signature tries to achieve some sort of happy medium
between the styles of my mother and father but in reality fails utterly. It
tries to please everyone but ends up pleasing no one.
In a sense my signature is very much a manifestation of
myself, and I suspect to a small degree the same could be said of others. For
me it embodies the dichotomy of my life: the methodical and the erratic, the
dogmatic and the flexible, the discipline and the laziness, the courage and the
cowardice, the wisdom and the foolishness, the contentment and the despair, the
seriousness and the clown.
