One more way I'm ushering in summer

For years and years when I was a teenager and even through college, I painted my toes a bright, grassy, glossy green every summer.

I had a basket of green polish just for the warm weather months, and it made me feel a little rebellious, a little glamorous and very happy to carefully brush it on. These were the days when most girls I knew had pale pink or red polish, with the exception of the bored bad girls who dared to paint their nails with White Out. I made green my signature toe color (never fingernails) in one of my first and (not so) dramatic acts of individuation.

Until I had Lil E, I was a master manicurist and pedicurist. I enjoyed going to the salon but I knew I could be just as pleased watching "Temptation Island" and DIYing my mani-pedi as having someone else do it. Apparently, pregnancy took with it the time, patience and interest in making sure the polish is on perfectly, the nails are shaped precisely and everything is scrubbed down, rubbed up, and looking fine. Now I visit the ladies at the salon when I can and sit back with a People and let them make my toes (and sometimes fingernails) look the way they should.

And for the last couple of years, they've looked gothy and dark. I've been tempted by other colors, and on occasion I will give in, but visit after visit, season after season, my nails are almost always black, navy blue or the deepest purple. Even in summer, there is very little deviation.

Really, I am a pink grrrl. My favorite shoes are red and patent leather. I sometimes even wear green. Just not on my toes. Not anymore.

I thought about that today when I decided I'd use some of my time during this third free weekend in a row to take care of my tootsies. I pulled off my sunglasses to pick a color and smiled to remember how much I used to love looking down to see the happy green peeking out from my flip-flops.

So I did something bold -- prepare yourself, kittens, it's a big one. I put back the bottle of  Darkest Cherry and chose a summer color for myself. It isn't green, but it is bright and sunny and I can't stop staring at the not-black I'm now wearing.

  

Of course, it's not a big one. But, just like so many other details of our lives and our bodies and our beings, I think these tiny shifts are significant. Sometimes they are shifts back to the self we were a long time ago or has been quiet for many years. Sometimes they are shifts forward to a person we hope to be or want to be or maybe, we are and just have yet to recognize.

Since becoming a single mother, I've made those shifts both backward and forward in music, food, exercise, sleep, clothing, hair,  financial responsibility, friends. There's not a lot of radical movement -- in fact, most people around me probably wouldn't recognize it. But I see the little changes, I feel the difference.

Today, I'm seeing new summer nails, and it's enough.

Comments

[Amy Sue Nathan]

OK, could we be MORE different? :-D

http://amysuenathan.com/?p=1484