My Toenails

I love my toes. In fact, I love feet. Nothing fascinates me so much as the perfection of the 10 tiny, perfectly formed toes of a newborn baby. I love my toes so much that even when I spent 2 winters at business school in Boston, my toes were always beautifully pedicured. I love my feet. I massage them, moisturize them and generally ALWAYS have them looking perfect.

Except for the last 4 weeks. The price I paid for completing the Disney Marathon is the certain impending loss of 3 toenails. One look at my feet after the marathon and I realized that the toenails would soon be gone. I accepted that then, but what I have had a hard time accepting is that the whole process of losing the damaged toenails and growing new pretty ones is taking a long time. Despite my tugging at them, gently pulling them, pushing back the cuticles and other manipulation, the toenails refuse to budge. They are coming off at their own sweet pace. I bemoaned this to Yvette, my pedicurist, who assured me not to worry, that all 10 toes would soon be looking pretty again. She advised me to leave them alone and pointed out that the old toenails needed to stay on as protection for the new ones as they grow out. So, I relaxed.

And in this relaxing, I muse: isn’t life just like my toenails? Isn’t it interesting how much we stress ourselves about totally insignificant things? When I consider the triumph of completing 26.2 miles, what are 3 lost toenails? Insignificant! And yet, that is how we approach our lives. We worry and make problems out of minor issues. We focus energy on these issues until they loom like insurmountable obstacles in our lives. Life requires patience. It is no use my worrying about the old toenails. They will come off. In their own time. And the new ones will grow. In their own time. Nothing I do will hasten the process.

When we go through challenging times, we think that our world is coming down around us. What we don’t often recognise is the new growth that’s taking place within us – hidden from view by the old. We keep focusing on the old stuff, the problems, the baggage in our lives, and forget that our challenges present opportunities for us to grow anew. We also forget that our growth is a process – we don’t just achieve nirvana in one leap. There is a process of coming to terms with who we are, of shedding our old selves, of letting go of the detritus we have gathered along the way, of tuning into who and what we want to be and then creating our new selves. We must go through this. Some go through it quicker, others take many lifetimes. What we need is faith and trust in the process. Peeping under one of the old toenails, I see the new one emerging. I can trust that the new toenails are growing – I really did not need to peek.

My toenails are a reminder that there is always a price to pay. We have to give up something in order to achieve our goals. Now, we tend to view this negatively – some may even call it “sacrifice”. What it really means is that we have to come to terms with what’s important in our lives, what we can do without and what will propel us forward. We then understand that giving up something is not negative, but simply, lovingly releasing and letting go of the things that no longer serve us.

Today, I have decided to love my 3 blackened, grungy toenails, as much as I loved them when they were perfect. I release them. I also love the new ones that I know are growing perfectly. I have faith. Today they all, old and new, ARE perfect. As is my life.