Warning: No pics, just blather, yammer, yak yak yak, yada yada yada.
So, according to my 12-year-old son, Ian, nail art is a fun but relatively useless hobby. I have to agree. With the 24 hours God gives me each day, I generally need to cram in schooling four kids, taking care of housework (with four nifty helpers!), meals, working very part-time for my BIL, pre-reading assignments so I know what the heckito people are learning the next day on their own, scrapbooking major events for all the kids and my own album, too...a lot of stuff that feels pretty important. For most of my mothering career, I didn't bother with nail polish. I didn't have time for it, or felt the time was better used elsewhere, I couldn't keep it from chipping two hours after I finished, and who the heck was going to see it most days?
Then, about two years ago, it hit me. I was 36 and the clock wasn't going anywhere but rapidly forward. I spent my whole life to that point agonizing about what people think, not just about consequential facets of my life, but really minute details like whether I was too uncool at 16, or 26, or 36 to wear blue nail polish. And I had a revelation: I needed to reserve concern for others' opinions to what really mattered, which was whether my words and actions and choices reflected Christ. No one was likely to consider me a candidate for the hot place because my nails were blurple!
So, I'd polish and enjoy what felt like wild and wacky nail colors for a few months, and then quit. And then pick it up again. It wasn't until my best friend found newspaper nails on Pinterest that I discovered the world (the bright, beautiful world) of nail art. Suddenly, all the art projects in my heart/soul that screamed for creation could economically and (relatively) quickly escape onto 10 little reusable, recyclable canvases! The ideas in my mind that I didn't have $$ to create on a wall, or the talent to put on paper, or the guts to show in a larger medium could explode onto my nails!
Since sometime in the spring this year, I've been avidly reading other bloggers' nail art posts, swatches of new polish collections, tips on care, and tricks for achieving a certain look. I try to make a mani last four days, but sometimes I'm bored after two, or stretch an extra day so that I'll have a fresh look for an evening out. And silly as it may sound (especially to my serious little son), I have learned things through nail art about myself that I never realized or maybe just never absorbed before:
1) I am not the most original person in the world. Creative, yes. I can take someone's idea and find ways to make it more my own. Come up with something "wow" with no catalyst but my own lazy mind? Not so much.
2) It's OK to fail, and to admit failure. All the lovely women out there who have posted pics of smeared stamping, catastrophic color combos, and otherwise abominable art on their digits, admitting for all the world to see/read that their designs aren't always perfect, made me feel it's OK to admit what everyone knows already: I'm not perfect!
3) I would be a bankrupt impulse buyer if not for my husband! Holy crap, I kid you not, my polish stash grew by about 500% from April to October of this year. Now, granted, pretty much ALL of that was $2 and $3 bottles of Sinful Colors, NYC, and Wet 'n' Wild polishes. But still! Every time I stare at the (for now) 120 bottles on my homemade rack, I think, "How could I possibly need more?" And then someone posts swatches of a green nothing like any of mine, or I remember that I do not yet own A SINGLE INDIE POLISH!!! (Thank God for bday and Xmas!) Thankfully, I have to face that man who busts his butt every day with a full-time job plus a full-time business of his own to support us. I have to be able to tell him I didn't blow the grocery budget on polish!
4) And of course, I'm also learning TONS about nail art itself! What the difference is between a shimmer and a micro-glitter, duochrome v. holographic, which combinations of techniques and colors will or won't work, that what works for someone else may not be the best brand or style or method of execution for me.
So, while I will not bring world peace or feed the masses with my new hobby, it HAS provided some benefits. Besides, it's so much more fun than just painting my nails!
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