A 15-minute car ride used to feel like forever.
I had all the time in the world to talk to my grandma, catching her up on the bits and pieces of drama from elementary school. I’d gaze out the window, watching as the strip malls and sand sculptures of Cape Cod whizzed by.
It was fun, but the fun didn’t really begin until we got to the nail salon. I would pop a Mystery-flavored DumDum into my mouth as I flipped through the 3-Dimensional pages of polish on display.
Should I get purple again? What about this sparkly green? I think I like 304.
After much deliberation, I came to a final decision and pointed my color out to my grandma. If I was lucky, it was mani-pedi day which meant I could choose yet another.
I’d take a good look at the price listing, once again noting that my grandma was shelling out nearly 100 dollars just for me, her eldest granddaughter, to feel like a little princess before the polish inevitably chipped off.
The Vietnamese women at the salon adored me, as far as I could tell. There’s even a picture of me as a toddler, supported by a comical amount of pillows so that my feet could reach the tub of warm, bubbly water that rested below each seat.
As my feet were scrubbed with green micro-beaded soaps, I’d have to do everything I could not to laugh. As the cool and sharply-scented polish was painted onto my nails, I’d fixate on the nail tech’s precision, at the way she scraped the sides of my nails to remove the excess polish, thus adding another layer of color to the edge of her own. As I waited (and waited) for the polish to dry, under the hum of the UV-light, I’d struggle not to touch my newly painted nails. One wrong move, and they’d be ruined. I’d kick my feet and try to keep the foam flip-flops from falling off.
All of the patience and sitting and waiting around was always worth it, however, because I’d get to feel pretty in my own skin, having something to show off to the other girls at school.
It’s been years since I’ve gone to that nail salon.
My grandmother grows old and weak. She insists that she doesn’t need a cane, despite her clutching the backs of chairs and the hands of her husband to walk from the bathroom back to the couch. She keeps a pink plastic tub near her at all times, just in case one of her many medications causes her to retch up the banana she ate for breakfast.
It’s beginning to set in that I won’t be able to go to the nail salon with my grandma again, not in the way that we used to.
Instead, I sit with her as the only other person left at the dinner table, picking at my scraps of spaghetti for an excuse to listen to her talk up a storm about her youth. I watch 80 For Brady with her, not because I want to, but because she does.
The memories of the nail salon that my grandma worked to create with me have begun to resurface as I look back at my youth, and ahead at my future. My grandma showed me that something as simple as getting your nails done can build the necessary foundations of a strong relationship.
As I move on from the final chapter of childhood and into the first of adulthood, I’m going to take my memories with me. But I’m going to make new memories, too.
Here’s what Keeva had to say about her essay:
The idea of a college essay was always daunting to me. What could I even write about? It always felt like a college essay had to be about overcoming some big, insurmountable obstacle, and I really didn’t know if I had anything to write like that.
Luckily for me, however, my AP Literature teacher set aside a day to brainstorm and plan for essay writing. It was definitely super helpful to go through each of the 7 prompts on the CommonApp; I never realized that the essays could have so much range. Because of the brainstorming, I came up with an idea that I otherwise wouldn’t have immediately thought of.
The gratitude and appreciation that I feel for my grandmother undoubtedly got stronger through and after the writing process, and I really think that writing with true emotions is by far the best way to go about it. With this essay on my application, I’ve gotten 5 acceptances (and 0 rejections!). I am now fully committed to Clark University to study psychology and creative writing!
