Progress

See this~?

Beautiful polish, isn't it? I got it in Korea a year ago and it turned out to be the most amazing subtle golden brown/pinkish (I know it looks mostly pink in the pictures) with an insane amount of SPARKLY shimmer (but only from certain angles) kick-ass nail polish.

It was love at first coat ♥

Believe it or not, but this right there is a milestone. That's right, a milestone.

For as long as I can remember I've had the nervous habit of biting my nails. A lot. And since I'm a very high-strung person suffering from anxiety they used to be half the size in the pictures.

I always saw it as a barometer. If I were in a good phase I would bite less, and vice versa. There was a difference, even if you had to be me to notice it. To everyone else they were always just pretty horrible and I've always been really ashamed of my nails.
I would always position my hands so the nails would be as hidden as possible and if I had to hold on to say, a pole on the bus I would always curl in my fingers so they wouldn't show to the people around me. I always hoped no one would notice when I had to shake hands with people. And so on.

Now, my psychological issues are not going anywhere, and I gave up the dream of those long, gorgeous, French manicured nails a long time ago. As an enticement my parents once promised me nearly US$100 in today's currency. That may not seem like a lot, but this was almost 20 years ago and a hundred bucks was like, months of allowance all at once!
All I had to do was grow my nails long enough so you could see them when my palms were facing up.

Of course I couldn't do it and my faith that I would ever have beautiful nails and hands were kinda burried forever.

Fast forward a couple of decades and almost half of that in therapy for various reasons I might blab about another time, but things slowly started to turn around. Or so my nails were telling me! Because suddenly I started noticing them getting longer one by one, and me not biting them. I didn't even have the urge to.
The left ring finger was the last to finally cave in after a couple of months of being the only one napped at.

Then came a couple of months of these tiny fragile nails breaking off for no good reason, and me having to start all over. In time they all recovered well though - which still amazes me because I know what they looked like! - and now they're all pretty solid.

So yesterday after having given myself a mani aka filed them down, I suddenly decided that today was gonna be the day. THE DAY. The day I had longed for all those years as a girl wanting to dress up as and looking up to all the Hollywood glamour stars with their beautiful hands waving on red carpets everywhere.

Today I was gonna put on a coat of nail polish on my fingernails. Because that is how well I'm doing.

Good enough for polish...