Let me start with a confession: I bite my nails. Always have. I’ve never had acrylics or dip powder, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve had a real manicure. Nice nails just weren’t on my radar—especially after years spent as a ski and bike patroller, where gloves, grease, and grit were standard.
But lately? I cannot stop thinking about getting my nails done.
Everywhere I look—at staff meetings, the grocery store, daycare drop-off—I see these perfect, glossy, almond-shaped nails tapping on phones or gracefully gathering Goldfish off the floor. Meanwhile, I’ve got middle-school-boy hands: Chewed cuticles and proof I’m anything but polished.
Here’s the kicker: I don’t actually want fancy nails. I don’t really care how they look, and I definitely don’t want to spend $50 from my tight budget every few weeks getting them done.
So why the obsession?
It’s not about the nails.
It’s about the time.
Two uninterrupted hours in a salon chair? That feels borderline mythical. It’s not about the polish—it’s about permission. Permission to pause. To sit. To do nothing while someone takes care of me for once.
And the irony? I’ve recently stopped biting my nails altogether. No salon involved. I just started painting them at home with whatever polish I found under the bathroom sink. It chips by day two, sure—but it feels like mine. Like a tiny, defiant act of self-care that doesn’t require budgeting or scheduling.
Still, the thought of that nail appointment lingers. I keep asking myself: Is this just a subconscious scream for help from a woman who desperately needs two hours alone and a chair that massages her back while someone compliments her cuticles?
Maybe.
Maybe when my blog takes off and I’m rolling in passive income (hey, let me dream), I’ll become the woman who makes time for self-care instead of hiding in the bathroom with a snack just to breathe.
But right now? If I can’t find even two hours a week for myself, something’s off. That’s not indulgent. That’s a red flag. Every mom deserves two hours. We’re not asking for a spa weekend—just a little bit of space to exist beyond the title of “Mom.”
I think back to the “before times,” when time alone wasn’t something I had to earn or negotiate. I could sit in the car in total silence just because I wanted to. Two hours wasn’t a fantasy. It was a Tuesday.
Now, free time is a unicorn—rare, beautiful, and gone in the blink of an eye.
And let’s talk about the guilt. On my “days off,” I’m full-time parenting. And while I treasure our family time—and I have an amazing, hands-on partner—I carry this unspoken pressure that I shouldn’t use that time on myself. It’s not that I’m not allowed. It’s that I don’t ask. Like I have to justify or earn it somehow. Like time for myself has to be “productive.”
Even when I do get alone time, I usually spend it catching up on chores, errands, or work. Grocery shopping without kids is easier, sure—but it’s not exactly rejuvenating. It’s just quieter multitasking.
What I need—what I think so many of us need—isn’t more time to check boxes. It’s time to reconnect with the part of ourselves that isn’t holding snacks or schedules. That remembers what it feels like to just be.
As a teacher, I know I’m heading into the blessed season known as summer break. And while that doesn’t mean endless kid-free days (my kids only go to daycare two days a week), it does mean two whole days when I might—might—have the house to myself.
Last summer, I used that time to deep-clean the house with loud music, squeeze in solo bike rides, and blast through my to-do list in blissful silence. Sometimes, my husband even joined me for a “day off,” and it felt like we remembered who we were before kids and chaos.
This year, I’m trying something different. I’m making a plan—not just for summer self-care, but for how to carry it through the whole year. I’m done waiting for life to slow down before I give myself permission to rest.
And yes, I might finally book that nail appointment. Not because I want fancy nails, but because I want the pause. The space. The message to myself that I am allowed to sit down and do something that serves no one else but me.
Because here’s the truth: It was never about the nails.
It was always about the time.
by Tash Guthrie 
by Erinne Magee 
