I have been doing dip manicures for over a year now.

If you don't know what a dip manicure is here is how the Cleveland Clinic defines it: "a popular manicure technique where your natural or artificial nails are brushed with a resin/glue base and dipped into a finely milled colored powder. The process is repeated for coverage, locked with a hardening activator, and finished with a topcoat."

The result of said manicure is perfect looking nails, with a healthy-appearing pink tinge and a bright white tip.

Healthy-appearing. All fake.

Due to some nail infections, I decided to have my manicurist remove the dip for good in order to let my natural nails heal.

What I discovered underneath horrified me. My natural nails are a hot mess --- thin, peeling, breaking, painful, ugly. I am slowly nursing them back to health with healing nail polish and oils. They break easily and feel as fragile as tissue paper.

Dippers beware!

This process has made me thoughtful about all the ways I feel pressure to cover up what is real, natural, and sometimes flawed in my life with fake coatings, coverings and masks.

We all do this, right?

We try to make ourselves appear better than we actually are. We feel compelled to hide our rough edges, our less-than-attractive aspects, our human fragility, our mortality.

Pretty soon we can start to believe that the facade we are presenting to the world is actually who we are.

But underneath, reality always prevails. Underneath my perfect looking nails are my real nails---just keratin: tough, hard, protective protein designed by my Creator to protect the tips of my fingers so I can use my hands without injury.

This has caused me to think about the parts of me that I try to cover up or keep out of view in order to appear better or wiser or healthier than I actually am.

And to ask some questions:

• Why are we so afraid of what is flawed in us?

• Why do we judge each other for being human?

• Why do we put on facades - literal and metaphoric - to appear better or prettier or wiser or more pulled together than we actually are?

• What needs to be healed and tended to under the brittle veneer of our various window dressings?

The truth about me is that I have really bad fingernails, ok?

But I have a pretty good smile, I like kids, and I can tell a decent joke.

The truth about me is that I sometimes feel lonely and angsty and sad.

But I love a good happy hour with friends, I believe that in the end all will be well, and at times joy bubbles up out of me from nowhere.

The truth about me is that I have really bad fingernails.

And I bet you like me anyway. 😉

Photo by Hulki Okan Tabak on Unsplash