A little bit of nail polish can brush away the blues
Two lonely women, generations apart, and a friendship that proves...
MARY is nervous. She’s an 85-yearold widow and this is the first time she’s had a manicure. ‘It won’t hurt will it?’ she asks. I reassure her and take her hands in mine.
Her fingers are tightly curled together, but as I start to massage them gently, they slowly loosen. I lay them down on the table and begin painting them in the Chanel pale pink she’s chosen.
As I give Mary her manicure, she relaxes and starts to talk to me about her childhood growing up on a farm, how she worked as a nurse (it’s why she could never have painted nails), and her gorgeous grandchildren.
I’m on her second coat when she pauses and talks about living alone. She loves her children but they’re busy. Sometimes, she admits quietly, she feels lonely.
This is the reason I’m here. I am a volunteer working in my local day centre. Every few weeks, I come in with friends, and we give manicures to elderly, isolated women, to try to brighten up their days with a bit of glamour. We aren’t professional nail therapists — we’re just everyday millennials trying to do a good turn.
A manicure might not sound the obvious cure for isolation and loneliness, but the physical contact and meticulous care involved make it a powerful gesture. Any woman who has had her nails done knows how good it can feel to let someone take your hands in theirs and spend 15 minutes focusing solely on you.
It’s even more important for older women who may never be touched unless it’s in a practical way by a carer.
I set up the Nail Bar last month, and my friends and I are now painting dozens of women’s nails in our neighbourhood. We’ve met women like Jane, who used to be a volunteer when she was our age, and Elaine, whose hands were shaking from Parkinson’s until we took them in our own. As we gave her the manicure, her hands slowly relaxed and fell still.
ALOT of the women I’ve met say that little moment of female connection over a manicure helps with their loneliness. But the truth of it is, it also helps me with mine. I’m 28 and, on the surface, I probably don’t look lonely at all. I’m a successful freelance journalist and author, I have more than 14,000 social media followers, and my diary is always full. I’m a sociable, friendly person and I don’t find it hard to make new friends.
But on the inside, I’m lonely. Yes, I have plans and people to talk to, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m lacking meaningful connections in my life. Though I love my friends, I don’t feel I have anyone I can call in a crisis; they’re too busy with their own lives.
I’m at an age where friends are starting to settle down and build their own families, while others are so busy with their careers that they can only slot me in for a dinner planned three weeks in advance.
I’m also single, which means I don’t have a plus one to take to all the weddings I’m invited to. I am dating, but mainly via online apps, so I’m spending even more time making ‘connections’ in front of a screen when I’d much rather be doing it face-to-face.
I’ve done as much as I can over the past year to combat this loneliness. I’ve taken up new hobbies, from dance classes to rock climbing, and I’ve made a bigger effort to see work friends outside the office.
It has made a big difference — but still on a Saturday night, when I don’t have plans to look forward to, the loneliness creeps back in.
We may think of loneliness as just affecting older people, but I’m proof that’s not true. Modern life doesn’t prioritise communities, families and connections the way it used to.
But while young people may report feeling lonely, it’s still a huge problem for older people. More than 37% of people aged 50 and over reported feeling lonely often or some of the time in The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA). The figure stood at 36% of those aged 50-64, rising to 45% of 75-year-olds and older, and for those in poor health or who aren’t mobile, it can have impacts far beyond isolation. And at the other end of the scale, loneliness is one of the most common reasons that children contact Childline.
Last year, the problem came into the spotlight when The Loneliness Taskforce was set up to increase awareness and to produce a set of recommendations for Government, state agencies and all policy makers. Meanwhile Britain went one step further and appointed a Minister of Loneliness to address the epidemic. I was so moved — and I could identify with it on more levels than I cared to admit — that I decided to try to help.
I volunteered with a local charity as a befriender, visiting an elderly person in need in my neighbourhood. I was paired with Alison, an 85-year-old with disabilities meaning she can’t walk or hear well, who had never married and lived round the corner from me, alone, with her cat Pepper.
I popped in to visit her one Sunday last May, and within minutes she’d asked me why I wasn’t married, and started giving me some of the best advice I’ve ever received (‘don’t date such wet men, and why do you wear so much black? You need colour in your life’.)
I’ve been visiting her weekly ever since, for a tea, a chat, and a manicure. It all started because Alison talked about how much she’d loved dressing up in her youth, so one day I decided to bring in some polish for her nails. She had carers who made sure she was clean and dressed, but nobody to give her that extra attention.
I noticed how much she perked up during a manicure. If she was tired and down, she would quietly let me massage her hands. If she was feeling more upbeat, I’d tease her, and try to convince her to break away from her beloved pinks and embrace a glittery varnish instead (‘absolutely not,’ was her response — though she did agree to ‘an elegant red’.) I would leave our Sunday afternoon teas feeling warm, energised and tired from laughing.
While I was brightening Alison’s day with my dating dramas, she was doing the same to mine. I was hooked on her stories about growing up in the 1930s and working for the opera as a costume designer.
Her clear distaste at my weekend uniform of trainers and athleisure gear — as well as the number of holidays I go on (‘you greedy little shrimp’) — was so opposed to my own generation’s views that I found it refreshingly hilarious.
Over time I realised how much spending time with her helped me, both because I fostered a real connection with someone, and gained perspective on my own troubles. Alison is largely housebound now, and talks wistfully about how she’d love to go for a walk — something I do all the time.
HEARING all the little things she misses makes me realise that I might feel lonely, but I have the youth, health and opportunities to do something about it. It’s partly down to Alison that I decided to try harder to make new friends. And it’s entirely down to her that I set up the nail bar to help more women in the area.
With loneliness a particular issue during winter, there are plenty of ways to help — whether it’s donating to charities, or volunteering on the frontline, like I do. But it’s the little things, like smiling at someone on the bus, that help as well.
For me, the nail bar has been a way of being open with people about how I’m feeling, too. It’s impossible to help someone so closely without experiencing the benefits yourself, and I’ve loved every minute of it.
TO FIND out how you can help, visit alone.ie or ageaction.ie