INT. ECLECTIC LIVING ROOM - LEIMERT PARK - DAY
Neima is the first to arrive at an intimate dinner. She sits across from her friend, the cohost, when someone waves excitedly from outside the window. Because of the glare through the window, she can’t see who’s waving but their excitement makes her elated. The door swings open.
COLLEGE FRIEND: Neima!
She lights up, recognizing the friend she hasn’t seen in a decade. They hug, and sit on the couches.
COLLEGE FRIEND: Something you said when we were in college really stuck with me, and I was so shocked at your wisdom when we were barely twenty.
NEIMA: What did I say?
COLLEGE FRIEND: You said you had no more fear. You said you woke up and decided to be yourself. I don’t know if that still rings true but I think about that often.
That old friend is like an angel sent directly to her, because that no longer rings true but she had been hit with many signs that it was time for her to remember who she was before the world happened to her. It was time to no longer change out of fear that life wouldn’t happen if she didn’t abide by their rules. Because being herself was separating her.
She wanted to be set apart, but she grew resentment when God didn’t warn her that being set apart would be so isolating.
She didn’t know yet that in seasons of transition, things leave before things arrive. If only she’d been patient, she could tell that college friend she’s still that wise young adult.
I’ve always felt like both Cher and Tai.
The girl that needs a makeover. And the girl that performs makeovers. Basically, I’m the girl that has to make herself over.
Taking cues from the world that it’s time for another rebrand.
The issue with having two versions of me, has always been that they don’t agree.
Straighten your hair.
Keep it natural, it’s noble.
Dress hot.
But we’re artsy.
Take bikini pics.
But Instagram is our resume…
Okay maybe just one.
In an attempt to strengthen my sense of self against the mixed messages from media and social media and friend groups that are all completely different, every self help book there is has been read.
But I’m starting to think I’m too literal for those. Because, they all contradict each other, and send mixed messages.
And I know who I am.
Sometimes, it just feels like the world won’t let me be it.
So, I slip.
And sip.
I drink the Kool Aid (or the sugar dense matchas).
I soak in the headlines, knowing they’re a bunch of words that convince me of trends that only take me further from myself.
I get burnt out.
Overwhelmed.
Then, I hang up those standards of beauty and do my best to completely divest from trends
Return to self, even though the culture is everywhere.
It’s never ending.
A marathon with no finish line.
And I hate running.
Before we coined it a rebrand, it had other terms. Like growing up and maturing and career pivot and life phases.
Before we had to be a brand, we never had to rebrand.
Our sense of self wasn’t tied to profitability. We just were…until we weren’t. And it happened so slowly, so naturally, most just acknowledged the shift as a natural evolution. Lizards shed skin, we shed past versions of ourselves.
We’re constantly becoming.
And in between those big changes – like moving to a new city, choosing which college you’re going to go to, applying to grad school, changing careers, getting married, having a kid – there are the smaller shifts.
Like sweet kisses, a new lip gloss, a documentary that lingers long after the rolling of the credits, a song you can’t get out of your head, belly laughs, a new pair of shoes, a journal entry, a fleeting coffee shop exchange, walking into a pottery class for the first time, slipping on your first pair of ballet shoes at 27, running into an old college friend…
It’s rarely something that warrants a big announcement, or tells a story with a beginning, middle, and end. But it always has that feeling.
You know that feeling.
When everything is warm, and life is alright.
It doesn’t scrape against you like forcing. Algorithms. Scrolling. Saving. Pinning. Copying.
I think about that method a lot: copying. The Western inclination to imitate has ruined our ability to grow and I talk about it more here:
It has made a flow into newness feel like a sharp turn around a corner. Like the hallways in Severance. Like fluorescent lights. We completely miss the point in becoming when we’re constantly trying to mirror someone else.
Lately, I’ve thought a lot about that traditional wedding rhyme: “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.”
Now, when I get dressed or create a new playlist or add to my watchlist, I keep it as a guideline. There’s something powerful about encouraging a woman entering a new phase in her life to take with her not just newness, but also history and ancestry. To have something of her own and something belonging to someone else to remind her to rely on others as she becomes a bride.
I never want to just be new. I love something old: jewelry from my aunts or grandmothers, a documentary shot in the 90’s, a song from the 60’s. I love something borrowed: the items I’ve “borrowed” from my mom’s closet, the camera I borrowed from a friend to make this film.
Because we don’t become without people. There’s no such thing as new without the context that precedes it.
I used to have this saying, which actually was my Tumblr handle back in the day: in finding, we are found.
My college wisdom knew that I’d never arrive, which meant that I was always arriving. I arrived everyday. I was always new, by incremental measurements.
Who needs a rebrand?
In finding, we are found.
And everyday, we arrive anew.
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Thanks for visiting the Njoy Salon. See you at your appointment next week!
xoxo, Neima
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