I have them. Like right now. Comfort zone issues and press on nails. I bought these press on nails and they are way longer than I thought they would be and they are driving me nuts. But they are on there so getting them off will be painful so I sit in this crisis of my own making...again.
How many times in my life have I been here?
Taken some dumb action or failed to take an action, and then was surprised or even dumbfounded to see that almost all of my crises are self imposed...
Smack my head. Such a hard lesson to learn...except I don't.
I didn’t write yesterday because of those stupid fingernails. It was too hard and every sentence came out like this...
I sedjghfsd; sagpehnf gis osdf.
It was so frustrating (another thing that I do not handle well) and so it worked to be jet fuel on my comfort zone fire, conflagurating into a full blown inability to write or do any computer work all day.
BECAUSE I PUT ON PRESS ON NAILS!
I know it is ridiculous. But it is my truth and I am owning it.
This morning I woke up committed to writing. I made it through my spiritual writing (gratitude list and daily inventory), writing in my kids journals and began this blog. After two paragraphs I had to go cut them down. They weren’t even that long. But I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t write and so that was the end of those fucking nails for me. My boyfriend is going to be disappointed because he enjoyed the back scratches. As did the dogs.
No, I am not making a comparison there.
And I like doing things for people that make them happy. But like everything else in this life, there is a limit. And I reached mine. I want to make him and the dogs happy but I just couldn’t move forward in my own life with my own things that I need with those fucking nails.
I did a hack job but will endeavor to remove them completely later. I want the beautiful manicure; I just can’t sit still long enough for regular polish to dry or contain my irritation when they chip fifteen minutes later. I do not want to go to the salon every ten days to get gel re-done. And I guess I have learned that press on nails are not going to work for me either.
And so the fake nails have become a metaphor...I always think I can get a short run around, some quick fix, some easier, softer way. I always think there is one and what I find, what I really find out, is that my efforts to short circuit life’s paths, never arrive me to the place I want. And they always take longer than if I would have just stayed the original course.
Once again I took an action, this time it was press on nails, that then made everything in my life harder. Household chores were fucking hard. Opening, well, anything, fucking hard. Basic grooming and hygiene, way harder. And they were painful. They hurt, made me feel like my own, rather lame and un-pretty nail beds were being wrenched from my fingertips.
What I have learned is that some comfort zones cannot be breached. There are no fly zones that need to be respected and not challenged. I just need to accept that I cannot wear fake fingernails...like at all. Ever. And even as I write this, I know for an absolute fact that I will likely do this whole ordeal again.
Why?
Because I fail to understand and accept who I am. There is this adolescent girl who lives in my head who is still not exactly sure who she is so she falls prey to all sorts of absurd ideas about herself that she KNOWS in the moment are not true, or true, as the case may be...and yet, because she, in that crucial moment, thinks that maybe this time it will be different, that she will be different, she sets herself up again and again to violate her own comfort and reach for something she doesn’t even want when she properly considers the whole situation, consequences and results in total.
I am weird. I am particular. I am OCD. I am a lot of things. Some amazing, some not so great. But what I am not, and I repeat this solely for my own sake, I am NOT someone who can wear fake nails. And it is shocking really how something so trivial can fuck up my life. I didn’t even like the way they looked! They weren’t pretty. They looked weird, misshapen and too large for my fingers. So I put myself through this whole rigamarole for what?
The idea that I can be someone who I am just not. Again. Still.
But the thing about comfort zone issues is that they are replete with information if you slow down long enough to notice that you have put yourself in peril, with yourself, because of yourself again.
During the writing of this blog, I got up, set my computer down, went into the bathroom and massacred the fuck out of these fucking press on nails. All so that I could remove the obstacle that blocked me all day yesterday. The obstacle that I willingly paid for and put in my own path, contrary to everything I knew about myself...again.
Today I woke up still suffering from the same delusion. But it wasn’t long before I realized that my own suffering was optional. What I couldn’t have was comfort AND these fucking nails. And for more than 24 hours, I chose the nails over my own well being and comfort.
They will be all gone today and I pledge to remember this, but I seem to have a built in forgetter. I forget myself. Who and what I am. And I know better. I really do. I am not a wearer of fake nails. I have a certain level of envy for those women who can and make it look so easy. They seem to glide through life with well groomed and manicured nails and they seem better for the effort. Me? I am an emotional shitshow over here all because I put on press on nails.
I know. I know.
But yet again, in spite of myself, almost, I learned something new. That this idea that I can grow faster and larger than my own personality will allow preservers. And I have moved a little closer to acceptance for myself, this tangled, strange combination of Erin who is amazing and weird and wild and down right fucking bizarre sometimes. And I found that I can love her even when she does stuff contrary to her own best interests for reasons that are just plain vain. I can even love her then.
And so one more time, my comfort zones have been addressed and I have come out the other side victorious. Because I have come to know me, in all my pain in the ass, crazy wonderfulness. And I have come to love her a little more, while being annoyed and amused by myself, about myself.
I stood at the bathroom sink today, literally cutting off the nails that I paid good money for and that I spent over an hour of my life putting on. Yep, sounds about right. I seem to be the person who will not only inconvenience herself, but I will also pay for the pleasure.
But today I solved this issue and tapped out this blog with almost no errors and not having to hit delete a million fucking times to go back and make the letters appear in the correct order. And it was wonderful.
Sometimes the best thing you get from fucking up your own well being and comfort is the knowledge that it is you. You are the one that causes yourself so many headaches and pain. And sometimes, even with all this knowledge, while standing at the bathroom sink, madly clipping away the offending plastic vices, you can look yourself dead in the eye, smile and laugh your ass off at yourself. And that my friends, is a great fucking moment and really was worth all the trouble I put myself through.