[Vol. 25] Painted Nails & UTIs
You know, your typical Monday-morning, water-cooler banter.
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My roommate painted my nails yesterday night – a light blue.
I picked the color, she did the painting. It all felt very Sex and the City when they go to the nail salon and gossip. But maybe that’s just because that’s the closest I’ve ever been to the experience of doing my nails.
I also might have a UTI …
Why? I don’t know. Why is the sky blue? Why am I drinking a gallon of cranberry juice on the regular? Why does it burn when I pee?
These are all questions larger than life itself.
*And don’t worry, I already ruled out the worse stuff and am on the case 😉
So why the hell did I choose to write a newsletter about nail polish and a possible urinary tract infection? What do those two things have in common? Am I trying to draw attention the the medical connection between painting your nails a light shade of blue and an increased urge to pee?
No. I’m not. These two things don’t have anything in common – but maybe that’s the point?
They’re both seemingly insignificant from the big-picture, we’re-all-just-ants perspective, and yet they both have profound affects on the way this ant lives his life (I’m talking about me).
It’s not just an irritated bladder; it’s not just blue, somehow-already-chipping nail polish. Here’s what it is:
When something on your body hurts, or bugs, or irritates you, it really becomes all you can think about.
When you have a sore throat, for example, it’s almost as if every swallow gets more painful than the last. Every time you go to take a sip of water or a bite of a bagel, you feel your throat crackle and burn in painful retaliation. Then, at around day two or three of the sore throat medley, you forget what it was like to swallow without pain entirely – almost as if you’ve never gone a day in your life without a sore throat.
So we all know that feeling, right? Well, ditto for my burning urethra.
I’ve forgotten what it’s like to pee in peace. Actually, I’ve forgotten what it’s like to even walk around and not think about my bladder. It’s like my leaving-the-house-mental-check-list has gotten just one item longer:
‘Phone, keys, wallet, slight-irritation-down-under – check! Let’s roll out.’
My light blue nail polish is doing the opposite of that.
My complaining bladder has me missing my normal; my nail polish has me wondering why I ever settled for it.
A little blue paint on your nails may not seem like a big deal to you, but it is for a kid who would’ve picked a UTI over painting his nails and walking around in public any day, back in the day.
I would watch my mom do her nails on the kitchen table every now and then, but that’s as close as I ever got.
I would sit by and see her paint on her base coat, then her first layer, then the second.
I’d watch as she alternated between waving her hands around like she’d just eaten something really spicy to bringing them up to her mouth and gently blowing on them to get them to dry faster (probably because we were already annoying her to do something for us).
I never really thought about trying it for myself – putting on nail polish I mean, not doing the things I asked my mom to do by myself. I was a needy kid, let’s be realistic here.
I was a boy. Boys don’t paint their nails. Right?
Even though I was always so curious about it, painting my nails didn’t feel like it existed within my realm of possibility.
It was one in a long list of activities that no one ever explicitly told me I couldn’t do, and yet they’d always felt off limits to me.
Boys didn’t …
Listen to pop-y break up songs
Wear heeled shoes
Have crushes on guys
Paint their nails
At the time, no boy I knew painted his nails. Now I know many.
I wasn’t a trail-blazer like them.
I kept my nails color-less and my shorts baggy. I came out, but I still couldn’t play my “girly” pop songs on blast like I wanted to unless I was in my car alone. I didn’t want to look like “that kind of gay” – as if listening to Marina and the Diamonds could make me any gayer than I already was.
*Actually, it probably did. If you’ve seen the “How to be a Heartbreaker” music video, you know what I mean.
Yes, I came out, but I only did so to dip my toe in the water – cautiously; wouldn’t want to get the whole toe wet now would we.
As a none-trail blazer and chronic apologizer-for-my-queerness in recovery, doing something as mundane as having my roommate paint my nails a light shade of blue is trail blazing for me. No matter how far I’ve come since the days of choosing Mac Miller over Marina solely for straight-passing clout, I still get a little anxious when I think about taking these baby blues for spin around the block.
How will people on the street perceive me? What will they think about it? Worse, what will they do about it?
It might sound silly to you, but I imagine these fears will always live rent-free in my head
– even if they’ve died down to a whisper, at times. As a queer person, I think you’re often tempted to do what you can to mitigate the risk of being singled out of the crowd before it even happens (especially if it’s happened before).
But you know what? Maybe painting my nails isn’t so different from my possible UTI after all.
Maybe all those times I felt like I couldn’t paint my nails, or wear that crop top, or listen to Marina talk about breaking a boy’s heart on blast were, in fact, just like an irritated bladder.
Sure, that shit stung - and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy – but now here I am, writing 1,000 sappy words about a little blue color on my nails. I’ll never again underestimate the relief that comes with being comfortable in your own skin.
Today’s discussion Q:
What’s something you’ve done (or have always wanted to do) that’s outside your comfort zone but makes you feel more like you?
I’ve already shared my answer. Let me know yours in the comments below. As always, I’ll be reading/responding to all.
And that was That’s Gay, Volume 25. See you in Volume 26, folks!
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