Nail Polish

The Sunday after my marriage blew apart, my friend Susan took to me get a manicure and a pedicure.  It was fun.

Okay, it wasn't.  My nails looked great for two weeks after they were done, but I cried while they were painted.  Susan was telling me about a conference she attended that in a normal world I would have found fascinating.  In this new crazy, upside down world, my brain was flipping out.  I turned around and broke down sobbing.  The next time Susan went to get her nails done, the manicurists asked her how I was doing.

It was that bad.

At the salon, they put on a shellac nail polish.  The good thing about it is it last forever.  The bad thing is it lasts forever.  I was too cheap to get go back to the salon (and mildly embarrassed) to have them take the polish off and redo my nails.  Since the middle of June, I've covered my nails with a different color to hide the remaining shellac.

This week, my nails finally grew enough that the last bit of shellac was gone.  Yesterday was the first time in almost five months I haven't had nail polish on.

It is interesting to have such a visual marker of time attached to my body.  I have a whole new set of fingernails since my marriage imploded.  How much I have grown and changed during that time? How much has Jack?  Have we made progress or are we just treading water?

Last night, I had a little meltdown.  It wasn't really a meltdown; rather, it was me uncovering what I was feeling in the past year before our marriage imploded.  I wasn't feeling respected.   I wasn't feeling like an equal partner.  I felt taken for granted.  I was feeling a power imbalance, where with his job he had it all and I had none.

Last night for the first time since the implosion, Jack just listened.  He didn't argue.  He didn't get defensive.  He didn't tell me at the same time what he was feeling or that the reason I was ignored was because he was overwhelmed at work.  He just listened.

And I felt better.

Maybe there was some magic in taking off the nail polish, watching my nails grow out.  Maybe the sorrow and anger is slowing growing out of me, too.

Photo by The Boy.  It is impossible to take a picture of your own hands unless you have a timer on your camera.   I never really thought of that before.