Better living through manicures

You guys read The Hairpin, right? It's only like the best website of all time and I wish I was writing for them. I am deeply glad for Jane Marie and her articles on clothes and makeup and hair and how to be a girl, but today's article on doing your own nails just sort of stabbed me in the heart... in a good way.

Can you suggest a reasonably priced nail dryer? Like the ones in the salon with the infrared lights that assuredly are giving me cancer? Not the fan-only ones, I've no patience to sit that long.

No. First, UV rays scare me. They're probably safe, but I'm not going to look it up. And second, just sit still for 10 minutes!!! I think it will help you in so many ways, not just in your nails. Just relax and take a valuable break. This whole deal, the manicure, will take less than an hour, start-to-finish, once a week. You should actually be chilling out a ton more than that. Prioritize time to zone out on something like this, m'lady, or you will get sick and DIE. You think I'm joking!

I'm not trying to be super cheesy  but sometimes life jabs you with little reminders from the least expected places. I expected to read this article for tips on how to make my at-home manicures take less time (because I sooooooooo hate waiting for my nails to dry). I didn't expect to be reminded of one of the big lessons my dear, amazing life coach Dawn tried to drill into my head: Take at least two minutes every day for quiet and stillness.

I'm just going to keep using this image as much as possible.

Straight up, I forgot all about the quiet and stillness until I read this article on doing your nails. Which ... well, we'll just leave that statement as is without comment. And then when I started thinking about the quiet and stillness lesson, I was reminded of something my dear, amazing therapist Stephanie tried to teach me (failed, but tried anyway) about processing grief: Take some time to just lie on your bed and just let sounds come out, whether they be angry screams or just the sound of your breath reminding you that you are alive.

The truth is it's easier to hide, to escape. When the Busy sets in and the Stress parks on my heart and the Worry attaches itself to my brow, I prefer to just push through and ignore. I don't know, I guess I figure the Stress and the Worry will get bored if I don't play with them and move on to something else. But... REAL TALK... but when the Busy has set in and the Stress is parked in my chest and the Worry digging deeper lines into my forehead it's hard to fight back when Hurt decides it's time to latch onto my shoulders. Walking around with all of these things clinging to me really tends to dim my shine and I hate not being fabulous.

Instead of just letting those things hang out and plowing through the day ignoring them, maybe it's time for some quiet stillness. Maybe it's time to listen to myself breathe. Maybe it's time to paint my nails.