I appeared to be ambidextrous at entry to school and experimented with writing with each hand.  By the third grade I had become a lefty, but on April 1 I was the victim of a bad joke which smashed my left elbow, which required open reduction and remained in a cast for over six weeks.  This resulted in structural weakness in my left elbow combined with modest hyper extensibility, (I can touch the C1 vertebra with my left index finger from behind my back.)

I was encouraged to learn to write with my right hand and I continued to do so for the rest of my life, with a legible if ugly script.  I can write with my left hand, but very poorly and with difficulty.  I prefer to throw with my left hand but can throw with either, though more accurately with my left.  Even though my left arm has been weaker since the accident I still have more grip strength in my left hand and use it to grip the lids of bottles I have to open.

I suspect that my mental development was more typical of lefties than of righties, but I have always been rather atypical.  I suspect that the reported career advantages accruing to lefties is due, in part, to their having to learn to function in a world that was not designed for them and thus acquiring coping skills not required by righties and that those skills turned out to be generalizable.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."