There are other versions of you available
Some Lent reflections
Currently: Sipping a delicious tea infusion from Burkina Faso called ‘Kinkeliba’
Reading: Hail Mary by Funmi Fetto
Watching: Palm Royale on Apple TV
Listening: E Dey Flow by Moses Bliss, Neeja, Ajay Asika, Festizie, S.O.N Music and Chizie *exhale*
Thinking: About Paris… not Disneyland… but more on that another time.
“Do you want to do your eyebrows?”
“Erm…I think I’m alright,” I said from the chair I was sat in getting a pedicure.
The manager of the nail shop looked at me like, ‘Are you sure?’
“What do you usually do? Wax? Threading?” she persisted.
“Nothing,” I replied sheepishly and she actually gasped out loud, her eyes opening wide as her heavily lined lips made a large O.
“How much is it?” I relented.
“Just £5.”
“OK, sure. Afterwards.”
She smiled to herself as she walked away, pleased to have saved the world from my shapeless eyebrows.
I haven’t had my eyebrows threaded in five years. I stopped when lockdown hit and didn’t feel comfortable in such close proximity with strangers even when we were all back outside.
Lockdown changed my beauty habits completely: I stopped getting my eyebrows done, going to the nail salon regularly and it made me super picky about the hairdressers I go to. I employed a DIY strategy for everything, but when fluffy brows became a trend I took that as a sign that I could officially leave my brows to go feral, only shaving the bit between my eyes when the brows started to connect.
But after the shop manager had finished working on me and I rose from the chair, I remembered why this had become the foundation of my grooming routine all those years ago. Something about getting my brows professionally shaped makes my skin look clearer, my eyes look brighter and my otherwise oval-shaped potato head look more sculpted and elegant. I had forgot this version of my face existed.
*
I got my eyebrows threaded for the first time on the last day of secondary school. It felt like a firm nod to my incoming maturity: bye-bye girls school, hello sixth form college.
The beauty shop my friend took me to was next level; this wasn’t some back room in a loud and overcrowded hair shop where I saw other friends getting their eyebrows done for £2. This was a shop in the centre of Birmingham. You were greeted on entrance with bright lighting, large mirrors and an actual reception desk at the front.
“What shape would you like?” the beautician asked me as I settled into the padded, reclined seat.
“Erm, just looking neat – not too thin.” And she got to work.
When I rose from that chair, my eyebrows tingling with aloe vera gel, it felt like I had been upgraded. I looked older, more sophisticated – even with a bare face. Who needed makeup when your eyebrows looked this good?! I had read in a women’s magazine that eyebrows were “the frame for your face” and they really didn’t lie!
That evening, I toured my eyebrows all over Birmingham going to multiple (OK, two) different ‘last day of school’ house parties. When I returned home the next day my mom noticed the change immediately and started calling me “Eyebrows” in that affectionate, teasing way mothers usher their children into adulthood. And for the next 15-odd years, I didn’t stop tending them.
*
Fifteen was a significant year for me in more ways than one. For some reason, that version has always been the measure I hold my present self against: “I wonder what my 15-year-old self would think of my life/that decision/this outcome.” It’s a ridiculous question because, respectfully, I knew nothing then. Fifteen-year-old Jendella was absolutely clueless so her opinion is irrelevant, and yet, I still wonder.
What would be more interesting – and infinitely more entertaining – would be having a panel of multiple mes at ages 15, 19, 23 and 27. I don’t know how useful that chorus of under-developed versions would be, but it would make a good sitcom. I can see 15-year-old Jendella in her baby blue Clench jersey matching visor and side swoop slicked across her forehead with curls frozen in position with crispy gel. Then there’s 19-year-old Jendella with her relaxed hair, asymmetrical cut and brightly patterned tights under her customised denim shorts. Twenty-three-year old Jendella would have long, Peruvian weave in loose waves, a bodycon dress and that unmistakeable newlywed glow. Then 27-year-old Jendella would have a toddler on her hip, her trade mark all black uniform and a world weary expression.
“You’re divorced?!” Judgmental 23 would shriek, furrowing perfectly arched brows. Fearful 27 would hear this and run from the room with her hands over her ears and tears in her eyes.
“OK, but what’s the bank account saying?” 19 would ask, blowing her spiky fringe out of her eye. “And you’ve got your own house now and run your own business too, yeah?Remember the plan?!” I would want to tell her the only plan she needs to consider is stop trying to make her own clothes.
“Is this what you wear on, like, a normal day? Is this what’s in fashion now?” 15 would ask, eyeing my outfit before exclaiming, “Wait – did you get a boob job?!”
See? Useless.
*
I don’t think I’ll know who I am now, at 35, until I’m no longer 35. Hindsight is 20/20 they say; things clarify in retrospect. But I can feel myself changing even now.
This year I’ve tried to be more actively observant of Lent than ever before, and Lent has really been Lent-ing! I feel like I’m going through spiritual boot camp.
With this comes a heightened sense of self awareness and a more discerning eye for evaluating my own behaviour and thoughts, which is a blessing, but also annoying, because I’m annoying. Jesus really hit the nail on the head when he warned his disciples, “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak”.
“When I am weak, then I am strong.” Can you really feel simultaneously weak but also kind of stronger? I guess that’s one of the paradoxes at the heart of Christian faith. The Apostle Paul wrote about some unspecified issue he had in his second letter to the Corinthians: “Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me…For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Thinking about that passage and the word “grace” stuck out to me. Despite the spiritual bootcamp vibes of this season, I feel like I’ve been living in this padded pocket of grace, and I love it here.
I hope this version of myself doesn’t recede after Good Friday, but I know that will probably mean keeping some of this Lenten routine in perpetuity. Will that make me a more sombre and serious person? Will my jokes about becoming a nun look like unconscious foreshadowing in hindsight? I don’t know; it doesn’t matter. I’m enjoying the journey to wherever I end up, as the Lord wills.
*
“Do you like who you’re becoming?” is a question I’ve asked myself when I feel like I’m thinking or doing something out of character. I know that if I have to ask, the answer is usually no.
This barometer of internal likeability dances up and down depending on the hour of any given day. I catch myself slipping into old habits, focusing too intensely on something, reacting unnecessarily to outside stimuli that I could have chosen to ignore and I feel another part of my psyche saying, “Eurgh, brother, eurgh! That’s not it!”
When I get caught in frustrated knots, and feel myself defaulting to my baser instincts, I have to remind myself, “It’s a good day to start again.” Then I allow myself to respawn, reboot and reorientate, because there is always a different, better, version of me available.
Upcoming events:
Sunday 6th April: Oxford Literary Festival with Funmi Fetto
Thursday 24th April: Cambridge Literature Festival with Abi Daré
If nothing else, it seems a fun idea for a future novel.