[01-30-26] To Nia
The following was published with Nia’s consent.
Today was my last day living with Nia. I am feeling emotional about it and felt it worth memorializing.
When I first met Nia, I was immediately enamored. I remember thinking to myself that she was one of the warmest women I’d ever met and more than anything she was open. I loved her from nearly the moment I met her and I knew immediately that I had found someone who could match me in many of the ways I had been long yearning for. There are many parts to this yearning, but it can be summed up as: you could leave her alone at a party and come back to find she had made friends. When compared to previous partners, it was a tremendous relief.
There was a time in my early-to-mid 20’s when the way I related to the world was extremely one-sided. I mean that in the sense that my friendships and relationships were a tremendous amount of work for me and not as much work for others. I didn’t consider that perhaps this was a red flag. In my friendships, I would constantly be expending effort to bring people together without much of a payoff (read: I was forcing it). In my romantic relationships, I would often gravitate towards the wall flowers who needed to be pulled out of their shells (a version of forcing it, in retrospect). In truth, I was more than happy to do the work in exchange for taking up the space.
But, sooner or later, a resentment would start to grow. I was sucking all of the oxygen out of the room and became frustrated when my partner wouldn’t sing for me. I didn’t know it at the time but in order for people to help you, you need to let them. Not everybody is going to crack you open like a walnut, in the way I was used to relating to the world. My hands were balled into fists, how could I expect to receive what I was yearning for?
Nia, on the other hand, had no problem taking up space. In fact, my oxygen-sucking tendencies were frustrating for her in ways which helped me grow. Through Nia, I learned that if I wanted to have other larger-than-life people in my life, I needed to make larger-than-life space for them or they wouldn’t be eager to stay.
Nia showed me the power in negative space and the tremendous strength of a silent and attentive ear. Watching her talk to people was artful, she could open people up in ways I never thought possible because she gave them enough space to open up in the ways they wanted to open up. When compared to my prying tendencies, she managed to achieve much more with less effort and considerably less heartburn. She is a master at building rapport and I was lucky to have borne witness to such a power. She doesn’t seek to influence right away, first, she wants to understand. And she has awe-inspiring patience in holding back her perspective until she feels you’re ready to consider another way of looking at things. Perhaps too patient, even…
Living with Nia was a pleasure. She was the best side-kick a person could ask for. All she wanted to do was to spend time together. To chat, to laugh, to kiss, to make love. If each person was a sun then she, a sun flower. She just wanted to soak you all in, to feel your warmth and acceptance. To reach for you, her roots almost leaving the soil in her eager climb to meet you.
She was my best friend and she raised me up to be a better person. Her impact on me is profound and far-reaching. I will be feeling ripples of Nia reverberating through me and into the world around me for the rest of my life. My children, if I am blessed enough to have any, may never meet Nia personally but will feel the echoes of her soul in ways they’ll never fully understand. And, hopefully, so will their children. And on and on.
I am grateful to have had Nia in my life and I will miss her dearly. I will miss the softness of her skin against mine. I will miss her eyes beaming into the side of my head, beckoning me to turn to face her. I will miss her little T-shirts. I will miss her lips. I will miss her warmth. I will miss her by-and-by and through-and-through. I only hope we can find a way to be in one another’s lives, some day.
Swelling with gratitude, I typed this out as a text message to Nia just now but thought better of it and quickly deleted it: “I just wanted to say, before we go no contact for a few days, that you have been the best friend I have ever had and you will have my loyalty for as long as you live. Please”