I'm Painting My Nails Again

I’m painting my nails again. It feels like a big deal.

For the past few years, I’ve been doing Not That Great. 

I know, I know – join the club!

Apparently trying to white-knuckle life with a depressive disorder, an anxiety disorder, and ADHD  – all going (mostly) undiagnosed + untreated for THIRTY-NINE FUCKING YEARS  – can leave you feeling, uh, quite bad?

Anyway, I’m doing exponentially better than I was a few months ago. 

(Is this what it’s like to be a normal human? Have you guys been feeling this way THE WHOLE TIME?)

So, a few weeks ago, I got the spark of “I want to paint my nails!” for the first time in a looooong time. I felt excited about the colors, the textures, and the process, which hasn’t happened in years.

Why’s that significant? Because putting pretty colors on my nails has been a “for fun” activity for me since the mid-nineties, and having the strength (lol but also literally) to even be interested in getting back into it feels… big.

Backstory time: I have at least three core memories related to nail polish (is that normal? I don’t actually know):

One: Denim Chrome from the Pharmacy

One day, while we waited for my prescription to be filled, my mom not only let me get a bottle of Wet N Wild Denim Chrome nail polish, but she actually painted my nails with it in the car before she took me back to school!

It felt like a big deal.

Why?

Well, Denim Chrome was a dark, inky blue with a metallic finish, and we lived in a time when adults regularly said things like “The only acceptable nail colors are clear, pink, and red.” 

It was the kind of statement that might as well have been followed up with a hmph!, you know?

But there I was, with my nails unexpectedly painted in a flashy, dramatic color worthy of cool teenagers in cool magazines, cool commercials, and cool tv shows. And I wasn’t wearing it because I was breaking a rule or because I’d convinced my babysitter it would be ok  – I was wearing it because my mother bought it for me and applied it to my wee little paws. (!!!!)

I’m not sure what compelled my mom to let me get – and wear – that nail polish, but I could not believe my good fortune. 

I felt it walking back into school that afternoon, and each of my classmates’ gasps of “Whoa, your nails are BLUE!” only solidified it: no one had ever looked this cool before.

Two: The Road is Paved with Magazines

If my love of nail polish was sparked by my Random Wet N Wild Denim Chrome Lucky Day of (circa) 1992, it was cemented by reading magazines. 

We had mine – Sassy, Teen, and YM, and my mom’s – Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, and Mademoiselle. I devoured all of them. Seriously – a magazine would arrive in the mail and I’d read it cover-to-cover within a matter of hours, and then I’d be sad that we had to wait a whole month for the next one.

I internalized ALL of the tips and tricks for a flawless manicure: clean nails with alcohol before applying a base coat to prevent chipping, let each coat dry before applying the next to avoid those pesky little air bubbles, use an orange stick dipped in nail polish remover to clean up a messy application, and prolong a manicure by applying a new layer of top coat every other day (which I never actually did but still appreciated knowing was an option).

Each week, I had fun experimenting with my mom’s collection of pinks and reds from brands like Revlon, Maybelline, and Avon. Could I paint my nails and have them not be messy? Could I avoid streaks, smudges, gashes, and those annoying little bumps? Maybe I was chasing perfection a little, but I was having fun doing it.

[If you’re one of the people who marveled at how I could apply my own nail polish without making my whole hand look like it got stuck in a garbage disposal, I got good at it the same way I got good at building html-based websites from scratch on Geocities: I didn’t get out much]

At one point in the mid-to-late 90s, I read in some magazine that if you’re a woman who has her life together and cares about things, then your nails should always be done. Chipped nail polish? Well, it was a sign you were a giant incapable, untrustworthy mess.

“Ok,” I noted. “So, the key is to be absolutely flawless at all times. One must expend the maximum amount of effort but make sure it always looks completely effortless. Otherwise, people will think you’re high-maintenance. Got it!”

Healthy!

Thanks to that one dumb paragraph, I religiously kept my nails polished and as unchipped as possible until somewhere around 2015.

(lol but also yikes)

Three: “No, I’m Not Buying You a $12 Nail Polish, Especially if it’s Called Pimp”

Hard Candy nail polishes launched when I was a preteen, and I was captivated.

Clear glass bottles filled with every hue you could imagine? And they came with cute little jelly rings!? Those colorful little displays awakened something in my heart.

Since Hard Candy polishes weren’t available near me (our only options for beauty products were the local pharmacy or Wal-Mart), it only added to their allure. 

When my family trekked to the malls in Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Santa Fe, or Albuquerque for back-to-school shopping, the Hard Candy corner of the beauty department always caught my eye – and I longed to own one of my very own.

The two Hard Candy colors I wanted most were Sky, a creamy baby blue with a hint of shimmer, and Pimp (no, I did not know what that meant – I’m pretty sure I thought it was akin to primp), a royal purple. They were SO PRETTY, and they were so different from any nail polish colors I’d had access to before.

But, no matter how hard I begged, I always got the same responses:

“A blue nail polish? For $12? Absolutely not.”

“I’m not buying you a $12 nail polish called Pimp. And it’s purple!”

Yes, this IS the very same mom that let me wear the Wet N Wild Denim Chrome just five-ish short years before. See why I couldn’t believe my luck!?

I never got a Hard Candy nail polish. By the time I was a little older and had my own spending money, the brand had all but evaporated. And, even though it’s 2024 and I have access to practically any color, texture, or finish my little heart desires, I still think about Sky and Pimp.

Now: The Return

The activity that started out as fun and then turned into a quest and later an obligation has finally circled back around to being fun.

So, I’ve been painting my nails again, but now it’s 100% for the joy it brings me.

It feels like a big deal. It feels like progress.

PS: If you’re reading this before August 15, 2024, I’m offering a handful of FREE copy power-ups for my work work. You and me. 30 minutes on Zoom. You bring the piece of copy that has you stuck, and we’ll work through it together. Sound good? Sign up here and the booking link will arrive in your inbox!