August and then some

I found myself getting increasingly vexed about my nails. After having done bank errands, I went to the salon to have my nail extensions removed (after only a week of wearing them -- they're supposed to be wearable for up to a month, and not at a cheap price at that). It was the first time I'd ever had softgel nail extensions done (yes, in the year of our Lord 2025) to complete my look for a formal event I attended last weekend. By Wednesday I wanted to handwash my clothes and I could barely do it. It was utterly uncomfortable to wash the dishes as well. I had to repeat wash some items because I wasn't sure if I'd washed them properly enough. I wanted to clean the bathrooms and I couldn't. I could even barely hold my cigarette properly. The process of having my nail extensions removed took over an hour and was uncomfortable. Now that they're gone, I am only glad to be able to type on my laptop more comfortably at my usual typing speed, and no, nobody can convince me, a nonprofessional writer but a writer nonetheless, that typing with difficulty because of one's long fingernails is cute and easy. IT IS NOT. At least for me.

I don't wonder how other people get on with their chores with nails that long -- I bet if I complained to them about it, they'd simply tell me to get used to it. Or that beauty comes with these pains and discomforts. When I thought of that, I got even angrier. Why does beauty have to equate itself to pain? I refuse to believe that should always be the case because why are men exponentially more comfortable when it comes to fashion?

I keep getting told to "embrace celebrity," nails and all. I still do not know what that means, and I am still trying to understand why that, to be honest, makes me utterly, utterly angry. I've been trying not to be; a part of me thinks this anger to be unreasonable. But perhaps I should allow myself to be angry about it before I come to any epiphany or understanding. No way around it but through it.

I am angry. I have been feeling as if each tiny thing I relent to, or compromise, I remove myself farther and farther away from myself. A Tiktok trend I feel like I'm too old for. And then another one. And then another. An inane response to a stupid question. A pretty photo of me that, one of my best friends  humorously (and quite accurately) describes as sporting my "lobotomy smile." Each one a tiny lie that, I am afraid before I know it, might become a whole mountain of falsities that one day would swallow me whole until I no longer have any of me left. Because "harmless" is how that shit usually starts, doesn't it? 

What I dislike about being unable to speak of this to people I work closely with is that if I do, they assume that I do not understand how all this, in many ways, benefit my livelihood and earnings; or that I shouldn't be ungrateful (as if it were impossible for gratitude, complaints and worries to co-exist in a human being's emotional landscape). And instead of being heard, I am met with a lecture of things I already know. And among all things infuriating, one of them is being lectured on things one already knows.

I am also aware that perhaps this extreme reaction to my nails being done and undone -- among other tiny things -- stems a lot from the psychological fatigue brought on by continuous exposure to people and parties and crowds (all work-related). Only yesterday did I realize that I have been running on empty for almost two weeks now. My social battery is on the negative.

Look, I do not dislike getting dolled up, or strategizing for one's career. That can be a fun process, I know.  (I remember Alex and I used to talk about his creative processes in his advertising career.) But if it all starts to eat away at whatever I'm made up of is when it all becomes tedious and confusing. I am feeling like I have very little agency over how I might want to do things. And it's beginning to feel as if doing stuff only because I'm told to is becoming a lonely experience. I don't trust that I'm being heard by people I work with. I feel like I'm not allowed to complain, or make fun of the ridiculous because it's all automatically deemed as ingratitude, or that I'm "manifesting" negative energy (tell that to stand-up comedians who poke fun at the ridiculous, whose job is to complain about what is and what should be. There was a TED talk on that, about humor being the clash between what is and what should be, because that's where you find the ridiculous and funny.) I don't disdain people for "manifesting" good things in their lives but if that logic is used to prevent me from processing my experiences for fear of "manifesting negativity," then what gives? THAT alone is ridiculous to me.