I got my nails done--or DID--(as the wannabe ghetto suburbanites wearing Phat Farm say) for my wedding, almost a month ago now. I had never had gel nails before, but was advised to go for the smelly fake stuff because they are hard and resilient and therefore will not chip like nail polish. It was my wedding, I was down with pulling out all the stops. Even if it meant filing my real nails down to a harsh, grainy surface, and sitting in a chemical, cancer-smelling room for an hour.
We all went together, me, my sister, my ant, my best friend and my grama. Well, grama and my aunt had to leave cuz grama couldn’t handle the fumes. I was amazed by their teeny tiny brushes and applicators, like I was watching someone play with Polly Pocket toys instead of grooming me.
They looked weird, not like my nails that I had been growing out. The whites were very white and the gel part was thick and kind of heavy. But people do it all the time and suck it up and really? Was I complaining? It hurt a little the first couple days, but I ended up really liking the final production on my hands (minus the little red nick the nail lady gave me on my right forefinger. C’mon! I’d been nursing those hands for a whole month and you nick a finger?)
Wedding day came and went and I honestly didn’t think about fingernails the whole day through but they did look really nice, I can reflect now via photos. I’m glad I did it. Edit: I was glad I did it until the first one started coming off. The bottom half of my left middle finger chipped away so that every time I washed my hair, individual strands would get caught under this fake gel fingernail.
I was back in Whitehorse and not sure there even was a place to get them touched up. I talked to my mum on the phone and she was going to get hers redone, “just once because they aren’t looking very good.” She’ll be a gel nails addict now, I’m sure.
I knew I didn’t want to be. They don’t feel very “me”-ish and I had grown to like the nails I found myself capable of growing, once I quit biting them nervously. (A habit so hard to break and ingrained since I was little it took husband’s moving away for 6 months to give me the solace and reflection to beautify my nails).
Today, still only 3 or so weeks after getting my fake gel nails applied, all but the thumb ones have come off, and now I have short, brittle boy-looking fingernails all over again. The surfaces scarred with weird white specks and stripes from the glue, I guess.
But, hands are hands and as Jewel (remember her??) used to say, they are my own. So today I embrace my broke-down ugly-looking hands with two nice-looking thumbs and type at my keyboard with increased ease.Besides, I've got two beautiful rings on my finger that make it all worthwhile.

Labels: wedding