On pretty things, possibility, and getting ready for maybe
One Saturday morning in August, I painted my fingernails pink. This would not ordinarily qualify as an event. But I hadn’t painted my nails in years.
I was home alone that morning. I had met someone new a month back. Things had been tense between us for a few days, but we had spent several weekends together back to back by then. Seeing him on the weekend had started to feel almost automatic. There was no actual plan for that Saturday, but I still thought he might text.
So I waited.
I put on Skywalkers on Netflix, thinking a documentary would distract me. It did not. I watched for a few minutes. Checked my phone. Watched a little more. Realized I had absorbed almost none of what I had just watched. Paused it. Checked my phone again.
Nothing.
Press play.
Pause.
Check.
Nothing.
As the morning went on, I became increasingly aware that he might not text at all. At some point, I got out the nail polish anyway.
Pink.
I don’t remember consciously thinking, I should paint my nails in case I see him. I’m not sure I even admitted that to myself. But I know why I did it.
I wanted to look pretty for him.
That was something I had started doing with him: putting more effort into getting ready than I wanted him to know I was putting in.
Before one of our dates, I bought a new dress specifically to wear to ZooBrew. Wine red and short, something I knew would look good on me. I carefully picked out and bought the black tights and shoes to go with it, too. I wanted him to see me and think I looked amazing.
I just absolutely did not want him to know that I wanted him to think I looked amazing.
When he saw me that night, he looked at me and said, “Wow, you look amazing.”
Exactly what I had hoped he would say.
Naturally, I immediately lied. I told him I had worn the dress to work that day because I was still new there and hadn’t realized it was casual Friday.
I had realized it was casual Friday.
I had bought the entire outfit for him.
Another night after dinner out at an expensive restaurant, he asked if I had worn the tights I had on for him.
Absolutely positively not.
What kind of woman did he think I was? A woman who stood in front of her closet thinking about what a particular man might like before choosing an outfit?
Ridiculous.
I had worn the tights for him.
I had specifically bought them for him, too.
I confessed by text the next day.
There was something almost embarrassing about how much I liked doing those things. Not because there is anything embarrassing about wanting to look good for someone, but because I had not felt that particular kind of excitement in a very long time.
I bought dresses. Tights. Shoes. I thought about what I would wear before I saw him. I noticed myself caring about little details I normally would not have cared about. Getting ready became part of looking forward to him.
Maybe that was why I kept pretending none of it was for him.
It felt safer to let him believe I had simply happened to show up looking exactly the way I hoped he would like. I could enjoy his reaction without having to admit how badly I had wanted it.
And on that Saturday morning, I was doing it again. Except this time, there wasn’t even a date to get ready for.
There was only the possibility of one.
So I sat at home with Skywalkers paused on the television and painted my fingernails pink while I waited for a text that might turn the day into something else. Maybe he would ask what I was doing. Maybe he would tell me to come over. Maybe whatever had felt tense between us would disappear as soon as we were in the same room again.
Maybe.
I had become very good at living inside maybe.
I let the polish dry. I checked my phone.
Nothing.
Eventually, I pressed play again.
He never texted that morning to ask me to come over.
We didn’t see each other that day. By afternoon, I knew we weren’t going to.
My nails were still pink.
There are much bigger things I could remember about that relationship. Things that were said. Things that happened. The beginning. The ending. The moments that eventually made me understand that wanting something very badly could not make it become what I wanted it to be.
But for some reason, I remember that Saturday morning.
I remember the documentary I couldn’t concentrate on. I remember pausing it over and over because I was too distracted to follow what was happening. I remember checking my phone and watching the morning disappear.
Mostly, I remember the pink.
Maybe because, looking back, they seem like such a small record of how much hope I was carrying around then. I had painted ten tiny pieces of myself for a possibility.
He never saw them.
But I did.
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