On January 6th I went to a dentist appointment expecting to hear that I had my first cavity. I'd been having pain and sensitivity in one of my front teeth for the past couple weeks, so I naturally assumed that my good luck had finally run out.

Instead, my dentist suggested that I stop biting my nails for a while and see if the pain subsided. He said he could tell I was a nail biter without even looking at my hands because my front teeth were as worn down as those of someone more than twice my age. And apparently, nail biting can be traumatic enough to cause the layer of cartilage surrounding the root to swell, resulting in the pain and sensitivity I was experiencing. If it continued, it could get bad enough to cut off blood flow to the tooth, resulting in the need for a root canal or even extraction.

Now, I had never cared how my hands look, but I do care very much about my teeth. It was enough to get me to break the one habit and vice that's plagued me for my entire life, the one thing I've never been able to change before no matter how much I tried.

It hasn't been as hard as I expected, but it hasn't been easy, either. I'm not really a fan of how having nail growth feels, and I have to keep them immaculately polished because seeing the white growth makes chewing it off very, very tempting.

But on the plus side, the pain in my tooth went away almost immediately, and I'm surprised at how much I love having nice looking hands. In addition to having normal length nails, it's also cool not having perpetually ragged, swollen, and sore cuticles. Cause yeah, I would chew those too if I didn't have any actual nail left... and when the cuticles were gone, I'd start on the skin surrounding the sides and top of the nail... did I mention I don't remember ever NOT doing this?

It's also cool to know that I was strong enough to kick something I've been doing so much and for so long. And I bought three new gorgeous nail polishes yesterday, making this a fairly inexpensive way to indulge.