So it was late on a Thursday night and I was prepping for an incredible, big weekend and I wanted to tap into my inner Angelina Jolie. I always, always go to this cheap, little, ghetto nail place just around the corner. You know the kind of place that is using paper towels as toilet paper, peeling stripped out paint hanging from the walls, and you might wonder if the cosmetologist licenses were legit. It was a risk. It was the dollar menu of Miami nail places. No appointment necessary. Quick beauty without the cost. No returns accepted.
I was getting my mani refill on. (Let me please insert that I have been going consistently to this nail place for several years now, but for the sake of time and busyness, I had just recently gone back to acrylics.) So this girl next to me started talking about how va-va-va-voom fake lashes were. And I could clearly see another girl in front getting her lash game on. Perfection. She gave me the lash lowdown…protect them like they were your new baby…don’t get them wet. (What were they Gremlins?) Sleep on your back so they don’t touch your pillow. Then she gave me all the wows of this spontaneous beauty journey. Instagorgeous. Instabeauty. #modelstatus. You don't even have to wear mascara. Kim Kardashian in seconds. All this for $20 (at that moment I should’ve listened to that tiny screaming voice telling me it was too good to be true).
But of course I didn’t.
Beauty was calling. And I was naively sprinting to her luring call.
And within less than 5 minutes I was superglam stunning. It was love at first sight. I was staring at model me—instant upgrade. All in just seconds. And all for only $20. Where had these babies been all my life? (or so I thought…)
I was told they would drop off one by one after about two weeks. Two weeks came. Two weeks went. Three weeks. Four. Over a month. I tried pulling. Prying. Praying. And I got one. It was half off. And half on. These lashes were lifers. Adhered with super glue or something else that only GI Joe could fix. But now it was dangling there. Half on…half off. What could a girl do? And it was horrible. So I got it all soapy and wet and I pleaded and pulled as gently as possible and I prayed, but this overwhelming pain pinched and possessed me. The falsies had come off, but so had some of me. It was the worst. Now I was like an alley cat that had gone through some sort of dark scrawl clothed in missing, mangled fur. Honestly it had never occurred to me that the Lash Queen had glued them right on top of my real lashes. My beautiful, healthy, long real lashes..waaaa…waaaa…I needed Tyra Banks for this job. These lashing weren’t going anywhere anytime…maybe ever…
A friend encouraged me to try water. I stood in the shower until I was a wrinkled, raisiny mess. Water drenching my lashes and eyes and every last inch of my face. Yeah. Nope. Nada. Uh Uhh Gurrlll.
What had she glued this false beauty on with? Gorilla Glue? Tar? Cement? At this point I wondered why I hadn’t thought through this a little better. Where were you now supermodel Christina? Maybe called the lash experts. Did lash experts even exist?
Almost another month went by and little by little a few fell off, but not without pain and not without losing my own precious homegrown lashes. And I began to wonder if I would be turning from mangled alley cat to a raging case of mange. 2-3 scrappy eyelashes here and there lining my hazel eyes. Or worse…I wondered if there would even be any lashes left…at all. And yeah regret ravished me. I was all filled up with knots. What had I done?
…pause this part of the story for a moment and fast forward about 3 weeks…
Remember the nails. The whole reason I had gone to No No Nails in the first place because they were the cheapest place in town. I was beyond O-V-E-R these acrylics. They kept lifting and I could do absolutely nothing while wearing them. And freshly out of the battle of the false lashes, I vowed to NEVER go back to Ghetto Nails. And so I manhunted the nicest salon I could remember. I would’ve given up Christmas at this point just to be done.
And the nail dissection began. The nail tech was freaked at how thick these nails were and for the next hour and a half even after soaking them, we fought the second battle of the beauty. And it hurt like a raging beast. I prayed that she wouldn’t break through the now barely there, thin nails to the skin underneath. Little remained of what had once been my own healthy nail. And after digging and scraping and buffing and filing we made breakthrough. Only remnants remained. Thin, barely there nails, filed down to the finger, length and thickness no longer, obviously unhealth had set in, and 6 nails had fungus. Brownish, green, funky, ugly, I-was-like-ewww-I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening-to-me fungus. It was small, but it was a part of me.
We painted them baby pink and I thanked God that there was something to paint at all.
Finally, I found a real eyelash bar that specialized in lash beauty. And spent an hour while they tried to figure out why exactly these lashes refused to detach. A lot of soaking, rinsing my eyes, and praying that some of me would remain when it was all said and done. My God…I prayed…would this glue affect my eyesight? Not even Rambo could’ve touched these tiny eye statues. And I did manage to save a few of my own precious lashes. Jesus did love me.
And 5 hours of my life wasted on achieving beauty. And so I contemplated.
Wasn’t there a life lesson in here somewhere?
Don’t we make these quick, unthinking decisions all the time? Fake nails or fake lashes or fake friendships or quick boyfriends or spending sprees or sudden moves that we don’t really research or get to know or friend and find out about first. We are addicted to the rush of spontaneity and instant gratification. We want it and we want it now. Because we are searching for what will make us feel beautiful or look better or bring us the pursuit of happiness at the moment. Choices made hastily to fix something we are yearning for…beauty or relationship or self image. And regret. And they guarantee us happiness. But not really. And they fix us suddenly…with scars and wounds and fungus and missing pieces all for hours and hours of what we thought we needed. All for something we thought we were searching for.
And emptiness and scraps and scratches and battle wounds or the pieces of our broken heart are the remnants.
But you are SO much more. You are life and breath and freedom and hope and stories and inspiration, not desperation.
Don’t settle. Don’t be cheap. Don’t get anxious. Wait & search & hope. Yearn for the best. Good things come to girls who wait.
This year…girls take off the nails…remove the lashes…be you. BEYOUTIFUL. You are. More than enough. You are. Sufficient. You are. You. And. That. Is. All. You. Ever. Need. To. Be.
