More Than a Manicure: The Cost of Abandoning Myself

Because somewhere along the way, survival replaced self-worth.

My fingernails tell a story.

One that I routinely thought long and hard about for a very long time.

A story that I sat patiently to create every three weeks, like clockwork, for an entire decade.

Designs that brought joy and individualization and self care and personal reflection.

Colors and patterns chosen with care, lines detailed with precision, the final product always brought me a smile.

For ten years, in several different ways, my nails consistently stood out on their own.

Independently of what I was wearing or the expression on my face, my nails always said “Look! I’m here! I’m showing up! I’m ready to celebrate, or to remember, or to just be together. I’ve been well cared for and considered and I want you to notice.”

Somewhere along the way it stopped being fun.

It started feeling like work.

It got expensive.

The joy had escaped.

So I stopped.

I stopped picking out or creating designs.

Then I stopped making appointments all-together.

I started gluing on tips at home.

It was the right price, it took the right amount of time, and gave me the desired outcome.

It came with less choices and less sense of expression, but my actual nails weren’t tearing.

I felt presentable.

And the world kept tuning.

This felt like a reasonable short term solution.

That transition happened sometime last summer, when depression was swallowing me whole and leaving the house for any reason felt like punishment, so I leaned in extra hard to this new option. I tried hard to learn all of the tips and tricks to make the process easier, faster, more successful.

And for a while, I felt like maybe I’d found a decent middle ground band-aid.

The fake nails that worked the best and lasted the longest weren’t as creative or unique as I’d have liked, and they weren’t exactly the shape or the length that I used to choose, but they did the job. They usually stayed on for about two weeks, they appeared at a glance as if my nails had been done professionally, and the tips protected my natural nails underneath.

So, life proceeded. And I’d change sets or replace ones that had popped off or pick out new ones in the little pockets of time that I could carve out - sometimes during my lunch break, sometimes after putting my daughter to bed, sometimes in place of running out for coffee on a Saturday morning. I had the process down to about 20 minutes with no dry time required, and I felt pretty good about the whole situation for a while.

Flash forward to present day.

For the last two weeks I’ve had completely naked nails.

My cuticles are overgrown.

The edges of my natural nails are rough and in some spots jagged, occasionally snagging on my shirt seam or catching in my hair.

These moments make me irrationally frustrated.

And logically, this is an easy problem with an easy answer.

But I realized that’s not what this is about.

A few times I’ve hastily grabbed a clipper to try to even out the unideal edges.

Once I reached for a file to try to smooth over a few true problem spots.

But those gestures just fixed one small part of the problem at the moment it was occurring. It wasn’t a long term solution. Sometimes another rough spot became apparent just an hour or two later.

What’s worse? The container of supplies and a brand new box of nail tips sat on the table at our air bnb in plain sight for the last five days. I put it there the night we unpacked, deciding if it was in my line of sight that I’d be sure to find 20 minutes to put this budding situation to bed for a bit.

Right?

Well, every time I sat down next to that box, there were at least three priorities competing for my time, attention, and for my hands to complete.

Each time I pushed the box aside for my laptop or my phone or a quick attempt at inhaling takeout for dinner, I did not choose my nails.

Not any single time.

Today, if you look at these nails through the right lens, you can see the whole truth.

These nails are a direct reflection of self care.

Of self respect.

Of repetitively abandoning myself.

Of choosing everything and everyone else ahead of me.

Ahead of something that seems “superfluous.”

In truth, we both know this is not actually superfluous. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. This is the visual representation of the brutal truth that somewhere along the way, the energy required to survive and to show up each day in my life as a functioning person replaced my innate self worth. The idiosyncrasies of my self care that rooted me back into a body that’s constantly out to get me, while living inside a brain that never once stops or slows down or even considers prioritizing myself - they meant something. They held purpose, and structure, and ultimately - value.

Now, every time my nails snag on the seam of my shirt or in the curls of my hair I wince inside - not because it hurts, but because I’m annoyed and I’m ashamed.

Because I don’t know how it got this way.

Because I don’t know how to fix it right off the bat.

Because I care, but not enough.

Because the obstacles of the last few weeks have gotten shoved in front of my face so aggressively that I ran out of steam.

Out of strength. Out of perseverance.

I ran out of grit.

And grace.

And patience.

Prioritization became paramount and anything not critical fell off the radar entirely.

Today, as I sit in the airport waiting to fly home, waiting for my pain medication to start working, waiting for an exhale I know isn’t likely coming, I keep thinking about what it looks like to reset. I keep wondering if pausing to do my nails or going to get them done will make me feel some iota of connection to or resemblance of my former self, the version of me that was still in survival mode but coasting on coping strategies decades old, burning the candle at both ends and the middle, pushing too far hard but falsely feeling like it was all manageable.

I want to tell you that I’ll get my nails done tomorrow. Or even this week. That I’ll choose myself in some small, tangible way.

But I don’t know if that’s true.

Right now, I don’t even honestly know what choosing myself looks like.

What I do know is that I’m tired.

Really really tired.

Bone-deep, soul-heavy tired.

I’m tired of carrying so much. Of pretending not to care about the things I clearly do. Of feeling like some version of myself slipped through the cracks while I was too busy surviving to notice.

I miss the girl who had the energy to pick a color and a pattern and show up on time.

I miss the girl who thought that ten tiny canvases could say something beautiful about who she was and how she moved through the world.

I miss the girl who carefully considered in the days leading up to each appointment what she wanted to channel - was it pastels or plaid? Glitter or understated matte? Was it the same across the board, did it create an alternating pattern, or was every single nail design slightly unique on its own? I couldn’t wait to decide. To watch them get created. And to share them both in real life and on Instagram.

I don’t know. Maybe that girl is still here, just buried under the weight of it all. Maybe I’ll find her again. Probably not today. And honestly it’s not likely I’ll find her tomorrow, or later this week. But maybe… someday?

Until then, these nails - these jagged, naked, aching nails - they’re telling you so much about the real truth.

They’re proof that I’ve been too consumed by everything else to take care of me.

And they’re a whisper that maybe, just maybe, it’s time to start trying.

Even if it’s just with one coat of polish.

Even if it chips the very next day.

Even if I’m still not okay.

If something in this felt familiar…

If you’ve ever abandoned yourself in quiet ways while tending to everything else, I hope you know you’re not alone.

I see you.

& maybe, in time, we can both find our way back to the things that brought us joy, or at the very least, those that made us temporarily feel connected to ourselves.