small ministrations and time

When I removed the silver polish using a cotton ball and a magic potion from CVS
I discovered the toenail on the big toe of my left foot was cracked.
I moved a fingernail along the edge to probe, to assess,
to decide my next steps.
Pull it loose?
Bandage it up?
Cover it with another coat of polish?
My decision:
Let it be.
But pay attention.
If it snags, find a band-aid.
Do not apply polish.
An image:
sudden pain, the old nail torn from the skin, the nail bed left pink and raw
throbbing.
Pay attention. Do not let it get worse.

In the next days and weeks, I occasionally
filed the old nail growth where it split away from the new nail growth
clipped the top of the old nail growth ’til it was flush with the skin of my big toe
applied Burt’s Bees foot lotion and cuticle cream received from my daughter on my birthday.

Now I check in on my big toe each day as I undress.
I worry a bit about it, still imagine snagging and pain
but mostly I let it be as I go about my day
trusting that my small ministrations
and time
will be enough.

One day
I will polish my healthy toenails silver or turquoise or purple
I will wear sandals
I will love how my toenails look even when I am the only one to see them.

In the meantime
the nail on the big toe of my left foot is cracked
but it is healing
and I am okay.

***

I started writing the prose blog post that follows first, before writing the above poem. But I was tired and fell asleep, and when I woke up, the above poem was in my head. I like when something ordinary like a toenail can be a metaphor for the bigger, more abstract things in life.

***

I’m not a fan of feet, but I love painted toenails. Especially bright painted toe nails. They say, “summer!” they say, “fun!” they say, “Hey, I know I’m a foot and I’m not the prettiest thing in town but I don’t really care because I am enjoying life and I’m not afraid to show it mmmmhmm!”

That is my first time trying to distill why I like brightly painted toe nails, and I’m getting quite a kick out of the fun sassy attitude.

So my toenails have been pretty consistently painted for most of my adult life. But now they’re not. The last time I removed my nail polish, one of the toe nails—a nail on a big toe, no less—was cracked. I don’t want to use nail polish again until it’s all healed.

***

Early in my college teaching career, I taught a short story called “Ripe Figs” by Kate Chopin. A girl is told she can visit her cousins when the figs have ripened. She checks out the figs every day, and finally they are ripe enough and she can pay her visit. The girl has matured along with the figs.

***

Divorce, empty nest, my mom dying, a three-year relationship coming to a close. That’s a lot of endings, a lot of loss, a lot healing that’s needed. I’m not like the character in Chopin’s stories who wants time to pass more quickly so she can be old enough to gain independence.

But I am like the girl in the story because I’m hopeful that, in time, I will heal as surely as the cracked toe nail on my big toe will heal, with new growth allowing the old nail to eventually fall away. She’s marking the maturation of figs, I’m marking new toenail growth.

I hope you’re laughing. I find myself super funny!

***

My therapist has said to me more than once that if I don’t allow myself time to heal, I will bring any current wounds with me into any new relationships I develop.

I had been trying to avoid even acknowledging that I needed time to grieve. That’s why I was frustrated with myself a couple weeks ago when I blogged about knowing the actions and routines I wanted to do but finding myself self-sabotaging, having little will or motivation to act on my plans. Then I blogged out some of my grief in a poem about pain.

I was super worried that I was going to be alone tomorrow, on Easter Sunday and my mom’s bday, but I’m able to spend time with my son. If I was alone, I was going to do my best to figure out how to have a good day. But I was mostly just really sad about it.

So here I am, living my incredibly good and blessed life (really—I have such an amazing life that anyone looking at me from the outside would wonder how it ever takes me more than a minute to get over any sadness), and I’m mostly okay, but I’m also trying to do the work of checking on myself and tending to myself.

I’m returning to the book Rebuilding When Your Relationship Ends by Bruce Fisher and Robert Alberti which is amazing in that, even though I believed my story was 100% unique, it turns out they’ve written the book exactly for me and my situation (which suggests my story is a human story, and just my particular manifestation of it is unique). The book and its workshop-style guidance is applicable for any relationship ending, whether divorce or a break-up or someone dying. So if you’re reading this and you have some healing to do from a relationship ending, this book can help the healing process. The accompanying workbook is in the pic below.

***

I hope writing about a cracked toenail doesn’t make it seem like I think relationships are equivalent to big toes (which makes me think of that scene in Stripes when Bill Murray’s character calls their platoon sergeant the “big toe” of their unit). It was more that I wanted to point out that the pain of endings can be part of our everyday lives without others being aware of it, and we have to decide what to do with that pain. Do we pretend and cover it over, hiding it even from ourselves? make it the focus of everything and obsess over it? or self-assess, tend to our healing, and pay attention so we can adjust as needed?

Also, I have to admit that I thought to myself last night as I tended to my big toe, “Laurie, by the time this toe is completely healed, you will be in better shape, especially if you take baby steps to help yourself heal.” And that self-talk somehow made me feel better.