The True Meaning of 'I Want to Be Cute'

Self-Love Poured into Nails (Mao Kawaguchi)
This is a review article about that.

Since it was about nails, I started reading it thinking it was a story about beauty. I was curious because I have written beauty essays myself.

Feeling awkward at a nail salon, or being unable to say anything while the customer next to you is having a lively conversation. I was reading it with a smile, thinking how relatable these things are for women, when suddenly the story shifts to her high school days, and topics like orthodontics, dieting, and double eyelid surgery come out.

Before I knew it, I wasn't reading a story about 'beauty' anymore, but a long story about one person learning to love themselves.

While reading this, I thought many times that beauty is something painful.

It is physically painful, and it is mentally painful, too.

Not being able to forget the words 'No, that's impossible' even after years have passed, being unable to eat for half a year, or having blood come out of one's eyes.

Even though it's a story about becoming beautiful, it's full of painful episodes until the very end.

But while writing about that pain, the author never blames anyone.

She doesn't say society is to blame, her parents are to blame, or the beauty industry is to blame.

'I was desperate back then.'

She carefully presents only that fact. That is why, as a reader, I don't think 'You didn't have to try so hard,' but rather, 'You worked so hard.'

The metaphor of Princess Kaguya stays with me.

Chasing after an ideal self—an existence that you don't even know if you can reach—and continuing to search for treasure.

This is the first time I have read a piece of writing that expresses beauty as such a story.

And in the end, she properly brings that story to a close.

'If the me of the past was the noble suitor, then surely the me of today is Princess Kaguya.'

The moment I read this sentence, I felt that the person who had always been the one chasing was finally able to go and welcome herself.

Feeling happy looking at one's nails or wearing brand-name clothes might have been called 'vanity' in the past.

But I understand that it is a little different.

It is not to show off to someone else, but to report to my past self, 'I've made it this far.' That is likely why, in the end, the nails were described as 'a precious offering, by me, for me.'

I really love that line.

Perhaps beauty is something we start in order to change ourselves. But what I truly wanted was not to become someone else. It was to have days where I can look at myself in the mirror and say, 'You look cute today, too.'

After finishing the piece while thinking about such things, I found myself staring at my own middle-aged hands for a moment.


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