“I love your nails” she said to me. 

I felt awkward, held my hand up for a second and then pulled it back down beside me quickly. “Thank you” I said back.

“No, really. You have the longest nail beds.”

“Yeah, I guess.” I said as my skin felt like it was crawling. Normally, a conversation like this wouldn’t bother me but tonight it certainly did. I was in an introspective state and really looking at myself and why I do the things I do. 

“Every man dreams of nail beds like that” she said with a huge and gentle smile on her face.

I made a blunt comment back about what I thought men really dream of and it wasn’t nail beds. We giggled and went on to chat about sexuality and why it can be hard to express what we want and like sexually. 

Later that night I sat looking at my nails. I used to really like my nails. I would paint them, only for my own pleasure. It made me feel sexy to have my nails painted. I wasn’t ever that good at painting my nails myself so I would paint one hand and then ask a friend or my mom to paint the other. Then, I went through a phase in life where I struggled with body image, who I was, what made me happy and how to feel confident about my body. When I went through this phase I started getting nails put on. I loved it and would go every 2 weeks. When I had my first son I stopped getting nails put on and it took me 10 years to go back to it. It was actually 3 months ago that I had gone and had nails put on in an attempt to feel sexy again. 

I sat on wooden steps and looked at my nails. The woman likely had no idea how much clarity she had given me during our conversation. I knew deep in my soul that gel or dip over my nails didn’t make me feel sexy. Sexy comes from within me. If I wanted to feel sexy I needed to change my mindset. While one could argue that the nails would help to change my mindset I would argue that the nails were a bandaid. I didn’t want a bandaid, I wanted to heal the wound. 

Two days later, I went to the salon and had them take the nails off. The women who I go to tried to convince me to have something else put on. I smiled and said “no, thank you”. She continued to suggest things that I should have done. I declined all of them and asked her to just paint my nails. I didn’t need gel, dip, sets or anything else. I was enough and that felt great.