Silent Reflection

Yesterday I won a flash giveaway on Facebook from Ylime Nails. To enter the giveaway, we had to comment with our New Years resolutions. I commented that I don't make resolutions, I just try to improve each day as I see fit. I thought I'd expand on that a little bit here...

You see, this is a strange but important time of the year for me. Roughly 13 years ago I was taken off of one of my antiseizure medications. The results were a disaster to say the least. I don't remember how long it lasted, I just remember during that awful time I was having seizure after seizure. Fortunately, it also meant we finally found the correct medicine to control my seizures. As of February it will be 13 years that my seizures have been under control.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, I'll tell you. Or rather, I'll show you.

I painted my Pokemon Pokeball nails last night and they turned out really great! Then brain injured Melanie happened. First, I wrecked both of my thumbs while going to the bathroom (OF COURSE) because they weren't quite as dry as I thought. No big deal, it was just my thumbs. I applied a coat of quick dry top coat and I was fine and went about working on my blog, Facebook, etc. At some point in time I looked down at my right hand and realized I had been leaning my fingers against my face, and my nails still were not dry. I had smudged pretty much all of them.

I was pretty much in tears at this point.

I went about my day, and it just suddenly hit me how silly I was being. I started thinking about how there are still days in which I have to consciously think about walking and I literally have to tell my legs to move. This made me realize just how incredibly lucky I am that the brain damage I had from my seizures wasn't worse, and that yes, I have healed. Thirteen years ago the medicine I was on gave me such a horrible tremor, there's no way I would have been able to do the line work I can now.

So no, I'm not perfect. I make mistakes. A lot of them at times. That's how we learn, and how we improve.

When I say I try to improve myself daily, I really mean it. Every day is a chance to improve myself and undo some of the damage so while it's important for the normal Jane to try to improve themselves, it's even more important for me because it's a step back towards being myself again and claiming back my life.

Here's my right hand - again testament on how my health has improved. I'm ambidextrous but typically right handed. Several years ago I could not even use my left hand at all due to ulnar neuropathy in my left arm.

Despite this manicure not being perfect, I ended up being really happy with it and I really love the combination of colors on my fingers. The polishes I used were: Sally Hansen White Tip, Kiss Nail Art in Black, Wet n Wild Buffy the Violet Slayer and Sinful Colors Dream On. I really love Buffy, especially with white, so I'm definitely going to have to use these two together again at some point in time. I forgot what a great white White Tip is! For some reason Buffy looks much more blue in my pictures than it does in person, so I do apologize for the color being off.

BTW - forgot to share the other story behind this manicure with you. I used a Master Pokeball because I thought it would be really funny to use a Master Pokeball over top my Oddish nails :D If you're not familiar with the Pokemon games, in each game you only get 1 Master Pokeball which can be used to capture any Pokemon without fail. My sister in law's husband has this funny story about how the first time he played Pokemon he used his Master ball to capture something stupid like an Oddish or something.. one of the really common Pokemon in other words, because he didn't know better. It happens to the best of us :D

For the sake of it, here's what an actual Master Pokeball looks like.