I look at people’s hands. Not in a weird way — or at least not in a way I think is weird — but I notice things. Smooth skin, veiny spots, dry or moisturized, stumpy fingers or long graceful ones. Are there rings or bandaids or any other thing…and then there’s the fingernails.

I can count on one hand how many times I’ve worn fingernail polish. That hyperbole, I’m 54, I’ve worn polish. It’s more accurate to say I can count on one hand how many times I’ve worn colored polish; my baseline for years was clear polish if I was being dressy. Why? Well, that’s where the chips come in.

My hands are always busted. Since I’ve embraced daily shea butter they’re delightfully soft but my knuckles are messy and I’ve always got little knicks in my skin from banging into something or another…at some point I decided my hands aren’t designed to be magazine spread worthy and accepted my fate.

It took longer to give up the toenail polish. There was something about red or purple toenails that just made me smile…until the polish chipped. And heaven help us all if it chipped off within a day of getting painted. There’s something cathartic about screaming WHAT THE F*CCKKKKKK in the bathroom but it does tend to echo in an alarming way which makes it less than great for those in the vicinity.

Somewhere along the way I chose peace. The aggravation and fury (an extreme reaction, I know, but sometimes it was there) at chipped polish, be it hand or foot, was unnecessarily raising my blood pressure and creating an all around rage-y environment. Boo to that.

So now we have naked nails. Occasionally I’ll chip the nail itself which is annoying as hell but apparently just the way my life goes. All in all we’re celebrating soft, clean hands around these parts and I save my oohing and aahing over beautifully painted nails for other people.

Linda hosts Stream of Consciousness Saturday. This week’s prompt is “chip.” Use it as a noun, use it as a verb, use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!