Manicures and Moisturizer
These are my "coming of middle age" years
Hello Friends,
I’ve been hooked on gel manicures since my nine-year-old daughter, and I went together for Christmas.
For the uninitiated, a gel manicure uses a gel-based polish and a UV or LED light to cure the polish and lock it into your nails. It’s a bit of a commitment but lasts weeks longer than regular polish.
I’ve also started using hand cream and a nighttime moisturizer (I have yet to find one I like, so if you have any recommendations, I’m all ears.) I apply mascara and darken my eyebrows more regularly. I try to blow dry my hair more, but it still ends up in a knot, on the top of my head more often than I like.
I am 43 and believe these are my “coming of middle age” years.
Last week, after I got my nails done, I looked down at the backs of my hands—my wedding ring on my left and a gold band with Aiden’s fingerprints on my right. My hands were not my hands. I mean, they were, of course, my hands, but they have morphed into my mother’s.
Suddenly I am a child, sitting at the kitchen counter, watching my mom apply polish to her long slender fingers. I can smell the alcohol in the polish remover. I can see the small black brush spread the sticky clear polish over her fingernails one by one.
Like me, she had small hands with thick purple veins lacing over bone and tendon. When she died at 49 years old, she had the beginnings of age spots.
I reach for my hand cream.
I miss my mom. I wish she were here to guide me through these years of change, of becoming her. I’m glad I can see her anytime I look down at my hands.
This is where I am today. Thank you for listening.
xoxo,
Emily
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