Ladies and gentlemen, I have become a nail dork.
Up until a few months ago, I was a nail biter. It was my go to habit for the times when I was sad, angry, excited, bored, focused, anxious, watching a movie, tired, frustrated, breathing...
It was the physical manifestation of my inner "turmoil," as it were, and I hated it. I spent years of my life with my hands balled up inside my sleeves and, while I wasn't a particularly gross example of a nail biter (think short rather than barely there,) I still felt self conscious of anybody even glancing at my hands. This was only made worse when I was 10 and my uncle decided that it would be really funny to give me a wart. He is only a few years older than me, and so he was more like an annoying but loveable older brother to me. As such, our relationship revolved around him winding me up in one way or another as often as humanly possible. He had a wart on his finger that he used to waft in my direction saying "Look, Laura, you're going to get a wart!" and naturally I would recoil in horror. On one of these occasions he held me down and rubbed it on my hand, laughing himself into a dribbling stupor while I shouted "NO, GROSS, GET OFF YOU HORRIBLE GIT!" He casually stated (through his laughter) that I probably wouldn't get it and not to worry. A few months passed and I noticed a small raised bump forming around my middle finger nail. Putting it down to my skin nibbling habits I brushed it off as nothing and forgot about it. A month later and it was the size of a raisin. It was gross. Had I not been a nail biter, it probably wouldn't have caught and instead of doing the smart thing and showing my parents, which would have likely resulted in a trip to Boots, I hid it. I hid it until every single nail on BOTH hands was surrounded by these disgusting, cauliflower-esque skin demons and I was deserving of the name "Toad Fingers." Thankfully nobody at school picked up on that diamond nickname.
It took about 6 rounds of awful, bright white wart removal potions to kill them off, but by that point the damage was already done. I hated my fingers and continued to hide them inside my sleeves until I hit 16 and realised that Saudi Arabia was too damn HOT to be walking around in a hoodie with my sleeves balled up.
I didn't like the nail biting habit, but then decided I didn't give a sh*t anymore and that it was my way of coping with my strange, warped little brain. As the years passed and I slipped into a deeper sense of doom and dread it became an hourly occurrence and through no want of trying, I simply couldn't grow them. The second any white tips started to show they were off.
My ex used to physically bat my hand out of my mouth every time I went to bite them, even though he was a nail biter himself, and I would glare at him and shout "YOU DAMN DIRTY HYPOCRITE," but it didn't diminish the fact that he found it "really gross."
Earlier this year I realised what it takes to grow your nails. Contentment. Contentment and a cute boy who makes you laugh a LOT. I didn't need to try... I simply stopped biting them. The happier I became, the longer they got, and the longer they got, the more I liked them. I started frequenting nail art blogs and Instagram accounts and realised "I can do ART... on my NAILS." It was like some sort of divine epiphany... and then the obsession started. I couldn't walk past a Superdrug or a Pharmacy without skipping inside to oggle the pretty colours and make various fireworks display watching noises. "Ooooh... AHHHH... look at the COLOURS... oh, GLITTERY!"
Collecting nail varnish has become my cheapest and most satisfying addiction to date, and I now have an impressive collection of over 60 different colours. Some glittery, some shimmery, some that look different from one angle to the next, some that crackle, some that look like crocodile skin... It's plain old delicious. My spirit animal, Cousin Simone, gave me a box full of nail polish, tiny jewels, brushes, etc, and once I had little nail art brushes in my possession I was trying a different design every single day. I've had Simpsons nails, Harry Potter nails, zombie nails, Pixar nails, Despicable Me minion nails and some with pretty little flowers on.
It's my birthday a week Tuesday. Money for nail polish is all I plan to ask for. That and chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate.
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