Ive been an "art-minded" person since early childhood and have always been able to use the fact I'm left-handed as an innocuous quirk, an odd aspect of myself beyond my control that I could wear like a badge of uniqueness — something I accepted because thats the way it is.

But trying to teach myself calligraphy through bumbling around the internet has been a dumpster fire at times.  Screencapping others works or downloading as many various exemplars i can find so i have something to strive towards.  Trying (in vain) to mimic the techniques that all the fancy IG reels make look so easy - and Jesus Christ on a Motorbike talk about a learning curve.

Nothing about doing/learning/practicing this as a lefty feels comfortable at all.  I have to keep my hand absurdly steady, sometimes lifted up completely off the page writing from directly above because otherwise my hand or arm would plop down fat and clumsily smudge ink all over.  It is intense at times and if i lose focus for 1 second ill look down and the piece I'm an hour into is BLAMMO! SMUDGED! FUBAR! ENTIRE WORDS MISSING! Just cartoonish dumbass mistakes.  Without conscious effort my letters begin listing left or right into italic parodies of what they started at as a new line.   Keeping my nib locked in at 45 at every crucial point in each stroke otherwise I crash and burn and making mistakes with calligraphy, specially on good quality paper, are almost never fixable or salvagable so to actually finish a word, sentence or page while maintaining consistency is such a deceptively difficult endeavor for me.   Basically it feels like all the nagging little rookie mistakes that 95% of people simply no longer commit, because of muscle memory etc are ALL the whoopsidaisies I constantly commit by the mere fact of being left handed.   I'd hate to be the person tasked to teach me these skills in an academic or studious context - achieving any noticeable increase aesthetically and technically comes at a GLACIAL pace.  I legit hate it. 

So being left handed in addition to all of these other things is a wrench yeeted right into my spokes as soon as I get my dang tricycle up into 3rd gear.

Ive been casually practicing for going on 3 years now and it's like wow, I *still* suck at this. Should I throw in the towel?

Are there any professional, skilled calligraphers here who work with Parallels mainly who also lefties?  Echo? Advice/insights much appreciated - sorry for dropping such a long thick steamer on the rug in here.

 I couldn't hold it any longer.  

This hobby has taught me, among other things: 1) the value of patience & 2) how deeply i loathe being lefthanded