First off, I have to say, “Thank you,” to Cecily K for writing an amazing post today. I was reading it as pulled off the stupid plastic nails I’d put on last night after a nice hot bath. I was feeling clean, relaxed, and I just wanted to look pretty. This morning they felt weird, had started coming loose and looked ever-so-fake. I so rarely feel that there is anything nice to look at that is associated with me. Tears are welling up in my eyes right now. That reminds me, “I need to go take my stupid Sertraline and my Prevacid.”
There, I did. I took a short break and took the medications that I will have to take every effing day of the rest of my life, the ones that allow me to pretend I have a normal life. I hate the daily reminder that I spent so much of my life living in fight or flight mode, that I over- and self-medicated with stimulants and alcohol on a binge basis when I exhibited eating disorders and binge drinking in my twenties and early thirties to the point where that my already bad reflux got much, much worse.
Nails, my fingernails, are also a constant reminder that I have problems. I don’t write about them, my problems, all that much, at least not in-depth, or that often, but I know they show through in all I do. My fingernails certainly do though, they show how I still tear at myself, and rip myself apart. They show the fear that will always be a part of me.
Okay, stop with the pity. I know more about myself than most people will ever know about themselves. I am fine. I am amazing. I am also pragmatic. I accept all the selves that were me earlier along this time stream. All the therapy and personal writing I have engaged in throughout my life have helped me to accept and love, and in some cases integrate, the different parts of myself. The only part I sometimes have trouble with is with me being reward enough and strong enough to take away my own fear and loneliness. The family I grew up with, my biological family, never said, “Thank you,” not ever, not even for passing the salt. I don’t remember ever getting any positive feedback from them as I was growing up, or after that, as a matter of fact. I have to keep working on being enough.
This may sound a little bit trippy to some of you, but there is more than one distinct me. No, I’m not suffering from a split personality or multiple personalities. I’m just more analytical than most folks. I’ve gone back, as much as any non-time traveler can go back, and put the various thoughts and feelings that I’ve had at distinct traumatic times in my life into the rational me that I am now carrying forward with me as my life progresses. These thoughts and feeling no longer have the weight of validity to my 50+ years old mind. There are a few feelings that must reach back so far in my life, that I do not have a really rational thought attached to them or associated with them. Whatever triggers nail-biting must be one of these feelings.
But old habits die hard. I quit smoking more than 15 years ago, when my brother David died. He had lung cancer and heart problems. I’d quit, or so I thought, for two, 5 year, periods before that too. So I had smoked on and off for maybe 10 years of my adult life. 10 years of habit is hard to break, but not as hard to break as 50 years of habit. I cannot remember not biting my nails.
At BlogHer, or at the B(l)oomerer Party offsite from BlogHer, I got this little package that looked like nail polish, but in it was a package that opened and there were adhesive backed fake fingernails inside. I feel pretty when I have long nails, rather than the ravaged, paper-thin, raggedy stubs of nails that I do have. Messages and judgments about beauty and ugliness are everywhere in our culture. Even if you are fat, old, or have a long pointed chin, you can have nice nails in this culture, right? Not me. I’m fat, old, have a long, pointed chin, and I bite my nails. My nails are too thin and chalky to wear acrylics.
I’ve noticed the “I’m not pretty,” meme popping up in my head more since Zilla (that’s her on the left in the photo) moved to Minnesota. My daughter is the most beautiful person in the whole world. I believe that with all my heart and soul. I think she has internalized that message too, and I am ever so glad — because it is true. She’s brilliant and witty and all that stuff too. But because our culture sends out so many, “you are ugly if you don’t do this, or this, or this…” messages, it was a long hard journey to make sure my daughter knew how beautiful she is and to drown out those other hideous societal messages with which she was constantly bombarded.
Zilla is my beautiful reflection. She reflects a brightness that is everything good about the world. And if she can do that, then I must be beautiful and bright too. There is a part of me that received all sorts of positive reinforcement just from being around her. I miss her, and I miss the good feelings I had just from being around her. Texting, Facetime, and phone calls just aren’t the same.
I’m a binge biter. I have had two bouts of nail biting since Zilla moved away that were bad enough that I hurt from the impact on the cuticles. My hair and nails and skin grow and regenerate at a remarkably fast rate. Usually if I have nibbled on a nail I can muster up enough will power to wait a day and then clip the area. There usually isn’t pain. But sometimes there is and this past week was one of those times. In many ways it is similar to cutting behavior, I think.
So, I have to work on this and figure out a strategy to help me cope in the absence of “Zilla-shine.” Geesh, this would be so much easier if there was someone in my intimate circle of face-to-face contacts that was really good at giving me positive feedback. Not like a girlfriend, like a wonderful, positive, sincere genetic lab creation of a husband that crosses Gregory Peck, in his younger days, with Johnny Dep. But since there isn’t, I’m just going to have to do it myself. Don’t get me wrong, “I love my husband.” But he as all the emotional finesse of a Cassava melon. Maybe I should call him what Phyllis Diller called her husband, “Fang. ” Yes, maybe I should. Would that be copyright infringement? I think it would be tribute, real effing sincere tribute to an amazing, ground breaking, brilliant, and beautiful comedienne, before the word comic became gender neutral. Fang it is.
Thanks Cecily, thanks for reminding me, once again, that “I am fucking enough, dammit.”
We are all enough. We must accept our beautiful self. But we do need the foundation to help with that. You may not have had it, but thank goodness you are enlightened enough to give it to our lovely daughter. It is the greatest gift you can give. She will love you for that.
She and I are buds. We talk almost every day. Our love is mutual and only grows more as time passes.
It amazes me that you were able to give a gift to Zilla that your family of origin wasn’t able to give to you. That must mean that some of the beauty and enough-ness you shared with her came from within you.
Funny….my post today is about enough, too!
There is beauty to be found in every stage of life & in people of every age. Our faces & bodies look as they do because we have lived & lived fully. If we are lucky that living also fills our hearts with compassion and the ability to see the great things we have been given. Your ability to see the brilliance in your Zilla, to cultivate it in her, to nuture her best, most outstanding traits makes you a very rich, very beautiful woman indeed. My dear, you are more than good enough!
I have not met you face to face, but I have met your heart and Miss Nancy please believe me, you are ENOUGH. You have such warmth and knowledge and your ability to share with your readers is ENOUGH to make us all come back for more Nancy. More knowledge. More warmth.
Oh yes, no doubt about it…YOU ARE ENOUGH AND THEN SOME. ♥
Thanks, Jo.
Tough post to read. I am glad you are looking to offer yourself some grace.
You are loved.
Thank you Susan. Positive energies do flow through the ether in support, don’t they?
When people think about body shaming they don’t often talk about fingernails. I’m here to tell you, “It gets better!” Cliche, I know. But I had horrible nails until I was in college. I bit and picked at my nails so much that I had boils and it was gross. My grandparents promised me a gorgeous ring if I’d stop biting my nails and just let them grow. It didn’t work. My nails were how I kept the pain and hurt from eating me inside. Then I went to college and was constantly hiding my hands. I decided one day I’d end the biting and picking.
That’s how I became addicted to chewing gum. Yep, chewing gum. Seriously, I’d go through 4 or 5 big packs of Trident a day! I know it’s not cocaine or heroine or pot, but without gum I was back at the old habit. I had to have gum. All. The. Time!
It took me about 6 months to stop focusing on my nails. By then I was up to about 7 or 8 packs of gum a day. Constantly chewing. That’s when my dentist told me I had to give up chewing gum or risk damaging my jaw. This is a ridiculously long post to tell you that I know where you’re at.
Today, no one would ever know of my past. I have beautiful nails and hands and when I let my nails grow out and have them done people often think they’re fake because they look so perfect. But they weren’t always like this. After finally letting them grow I had to put nail strengthener on them all the time. I used a regimen that is common to help women whose nails become brittle due to chemo.
Don’t give up. Biting and picking your nails is the physical manifestation of something else. You are enough. You are beautiful. And you are worthy of having beautiful nails.
Sara, I’ve followed you since last year’s BlogHer pathfinder day, so it really means a lot to me to have you share your story. You are sooo successful. I would have never guessed that you were ever self-destructive at all. If you can do it, I can do it. Well maybe, we are all different, but your support and encouragement is especially instructive and inspiring because you have been there. Thank you for sharing.
You are enough – that’s a phrase I love, Nancy. And you certainly are. You have not allowed your past to shape you, but redefined yourself and in the process ‘created’ a beautiful and loving daughter.
Thank you for inspiring me today.
You, are beautiful and wise and funny and Phyliis would adore your use of Fang.
That you are in tune will all the facets of yourself is a gift. How boring would we be if we weren’t constantly evolving?
(Somedays I’m almost pretty, somedays I resemble Skeletor.)
Hi Nancy, I know we’ve just “met”, but before I even read this post, I knew from your FB posts and comments that you were very smart, insightful, opinionated, and you became one of my favorite people to follow! Yes, you are enough! I love that you are secure and comfortable enough to put your feelings, opinions, issues, and YOU , out there! I admire that, because I know that I struggle with that. It was a hard post to read because I hate to hear of anyone struggling in any way, and I especially feel bad that your parents never gave you any positive feedback. I”m sure you’ve studied the reasons for this, but it would have to still hurt to this day, no matter what! But you’ve overcome, and have this beautiful daughter, and obviously many successes. OK, I don’t want to start rambling , so — I look forward to “talking” with you more.
I’m very happy that a really interconnected web of women writers is crystallizing at the moment and that I am meeting such a diverse and wonderful group of people, including you, Nina. I suspect we have very different approaches to some aspects of life, but that doesn’t matter one hoot, because as we recognize our commonality and areas of similarity we make the world a better place. I’m glad we both see with our hearts and minds and I look forward to “following” you too. And I love your positive spin and the homey feel of your site. Yes, I’m very glad we met. 🙂
I love Cecily K. She makes me think.
I love Phyllis Diller. She was really striking and pretty in her own way, but because she wasn’t conventionally beautiful, she had to wear crazy outfits, make funny faces and make fun of her own body.
I wish she did comedy in a later era when she didn’t have to make fun of her body to make people laugh. It’s a lesson for me, to accept myself where I am.
You know Anne, female stand up comics deserve more cultural attention than they get. It takes real brains to create humor. And she was so gracious off stage. To know a society we really have to know its humor and pop culture and look at the often uncomfortable world of dark, strangely juxtaposed things that make us laugh. It makes me think of Gilda Radner and how I wish she had not been taken from us at such a young age.
really, I find a lot of reassurance these days that life is hard and lonely for a lot of us; sometimes you feel you’re the only one. I don’t bite my nails, but I do have dqys when I long for a sedative, just to stop my incessant worrying, to lighten the black cloud hanging over my head as I watch my mother deteriorate and now am dealing with issues with my son. And feel I have little support all the way around. I might just start bitting my own nails.
Sandra, I’m so sorry to hear that you are caught in that sandwich between parents and children. I was in a similar situation a few years ago, as I turned 50, when my mother began her last decline, my high energy and high needs daughter was in high school and having problems, and my marriage was at a low point. Don’t start biting your nails, but if that black cloud gets too stormy, there is nothing wrong with and much to recommend going to talk to your doctor or another professional about coping strategies. I lived with a very short lens at that time myself, navigating from moment to moment because the big picture was just too overwhelming, but I know others who have gone really big picture and looked very long scale and focused on what they would do when these challenges changed and lessened over the long haul. And don’t feel totally alone, online communities are not like in person support, but our groups of women of a certain age are very supportive and here for each other. We are all swamped in one way or another, but we are not alone!