Your Chipped Nail Polish Is Actually The Perfect Metaphor For Your Life

Oh, to be one of those impeccably coiffed, nails-filed-and-buffed-to-precision, gorgeously polished, perfectly MANICURED girls.

They just really seem to have their sh*t together, don’t they?

You know exactly the kind of girl I’m talking about: the girl with the impossibly smooth hair and delicate diamond stud earrings. The girl who arrives 15 minutes early to all her appointments and attains the sort of life management skills that will ensure she’s allotted just enough time to pick up a Starbucks skinny latte on the way.

The girl who has never had a hapless run or careless tear in her stockings and actually has the wherewithal to get it together to eat a proper breakfast before embarking on the work day. The girl whose nails seem to miraculously never f*cking chip.

Her perfect nails are the perfect metaphor for her perfect life.

I used to daydream about what it would be like to be that girl. The girl with the perpetually perfect nails.

She just seems so in control, doesn't she?

Truth be told, I’m absolutely NOT one of those girls. No matter how hard I’ve worked toward emulating perfection, I’ve never been able to execute it properly.

The irony is I love nail polish more passionately than any other girl I know.

I’m the consummate girly girl, an acutely visual creature who feels momentous heaps of epic pleasure when I peer down at my hands and see gorgeous pops of color splashed onto the surface of my nails.

In fact, I haven’t seen my nails in their natural state since my private school girl days, when nail polish was forbidden in the dreaded “dress code” (kind of tyrannical, don’t you think?).

Though I’m a die-hard nail painter, I can never quite get it together to religiously touch up my nails or to venture out to the salon on the ever-necessary weekly basis (also, I’m under the possibly delusional belief that nail polish simply doesn't adhere properly to my nails -- it seems to inexplicably evaporate from them faster than the other girls).

I’m the spirit animal to the girl who loves to decorate her apartment with beautiful fresh flowers from the farmer’s market but can’t seem to keep them alive longer than a day -- so she ends up with a vase made up of half-crumpled, withering roses.

While the effort is apparent, the follow through is sh*t.

I used to be ashamed of my inability to maintain nail perfection.

“Why don’t you just go for the natural nail look?” my mother asked me, a look of disgust transparent on her stern face as she glared with disapproving matriarchal eyes at my chipped nails.

The funny thing is I’ve learned to embrace my chipped-nail-polish life. All us girls should. For it’s the perfect metaphor for our fabulously imperfect LIVES:

Because we stray from the shackles of  "perfection."

“Perfect” is but an illusion. Girls who are so hyper-dedicated to keeping their nails in the most glorious state of impeccability are projecting an unrealistic image of “perfection” to the outer world.

We all know even the most seemingly together girls are laden with issues when you take a closer look.

The beauty of being a girl with chipped nail polish is we’re not pretending to be these indestructible, foolproof entities.

Our nails proclaim to the world that we are comfortable and all-embracing of our imperfections.

Because we’re not afraid to get dirty.

The girls with the perfectly exfoliated, baby-soft, cuticle-clipped, un-chipped nails lack the working girl hands of us chipped-nailed ladies.

Yes, her hands might be pretty to gaze at and silken to the touch, but doesn’t that get old after awhile?

Wouldn’t you prefer a girl who isn’t racked with fear at the prospect of getting down and dirty?

Girls with chipped nail polish clearly love beautiful things because we invested our precious time into glamorizing our nails, however, we’re unafraid to mess them up if it means getting job done.

Because we’re not afraid to be human.

Girls who are afraid to expose their humanity to the world are often, cold, removed and hard to get close with.

They’re madly calculated and wildly self-protective.

We girls with chipped nail polish have accepted the fact we are, indeed, human, and to be human is to be fabulously FLAWED. To be chipped. To be rough around the edges and unclipped.

Because we’re so down with our real selves, we’re supremely easy to be around.

We’re warm; we’re not wasting our lives trying to prove something that isn’t even real.

Because we spend more time living than we do primping.

Maintaining beauty perfection snatches heaps of time out of precious, short lives.

The time and effort we endlessly pump into styling our hair, applying our makeup, embarking on trips to Sephora and getting our damn NAILS done is immense (and sort of depressing).

We girls with chipped nails clearly adore our beauty routines, but it’s not the first and foremost important priority in the great expanse of our colorful lives.

When faced with the choice, we choose to unabashedly live rather than to spend our lives shackled to a salon chair, vacantly gazing off into the distance whilst having our cuticles tweezed and our nails filed and polished.

Because we’re not uptight bitches.

There is no breed of human less of a joy to be around than the uptight bitch. And let me tell you, there is a theme transcendent among all uptight bitches in America: perfect nails.

These are the women who don’t dare to ever let loose or, God forbid, lose a tiny semblance of control.

When I find myself surrounded by uptight bitches, I’m overcome with an irrepressible urge to be extra naughty -- it's as if I'm suddenly filled with unrelenting desire to shake these women out of the banality of their “perfect” existence and make them feel something (even if it's just disgust at my vulgarity).

Chipped nail polish is an easy way for you to pick out a free-spirited girl who doesn't sweat the small stuff.

Yeah, our nails are chipped -- big f*cking deal. Let’s party.

Because we’re secure in ourselves.

I have a theory that goes as such: Women who keep their nails too perfect are afraid that if their nail polish were to chip, they would lose complete and utter control of everything.

How fragile must you be if you fear falling apart and having a life crisis in the advent of a chipped f*cking nail?

It's as if immaculate nails are the only thing holding them together.

How sad.

It takes a lot more than chipped nail polish to throw us off our game; our core is built from a foundation far stronger than liquid polish and sheer topcoats.

Because really, nothing lasts forever -- does it?

Nothing is ever permanent in this cruel, cold world, and the state of our chipped nails shows we’ve made peace with that reality.

Nail polish chips, gels wear down, acrylics crack and silk wraps break. People leave us. We move to new cities. We fall out of love and change careers.

Forever doesn't exist; it's simply not possible -- and every time we look down at our beautifully chipped nails -- we are rooted back to the earth, grounded into reality.