003: Nelia
I have a quite uncommon relationship with my landlord.
I let Nelia cut my hair once, a couple of months ago. For the results, honestly, let me just say that I would rather cut the hair myself (which I did for many months since then). I remember pretty vividly that the week after Nelia gave me the haircut, I went back to Kansas and my dear sweet American/Korean mom trimmed my hair for some “refinement“ work. I have to point out that I did not go back to Kansas specifically for getting a haircut from my American mom, who used to cut my hair all the time while I was still there.
I do not regret letting Nelia give me a haircut. Not at all. I think Nelia looks at me, and my partner as one of her many kids. Although this is just me guessing, I am quite convinced that it is true. She did mention many times that she would want to adopt me. But my conjecture is not based on that lol. Or maybe.
I have always had many deep conversations with Nelia since the day we met. Our relationship was deepened through those conversations and she was one of the first persons that reached out to us when we lost lulu. Our first few meals after we lost lulu were home-made and provided by Nelia. To us, she is extremely loving, caring, understanding and forgiving. To me, she is one of my role models in life, teaching me to work hard, eat a healthy diet and live a healthy lifestyle . She is someone that has light above and within her.
Anyway, as I woke up today at 11AM, after my 8 hour road trip from Monterey to SoCal which ended at 4AM in the morning, I looked at the mirror and said that “Well. Maybe it is time to give myself a haircut“. Then, as I walked out the door to get the remaining luggage from the car, I bumped into Nelia who was working on adding a new storage space in the garage for us. We greeted and briefly catch-up. I told her “I am going to get myself a haircut today”. And she immediately got hyper excited and offered to cut my hair.
Damn. I put myself in a spot, now what? A few seconds of hesitation, in my heart I was signing but I told her “yes sure”. I do not why I eventually accepted it. She looked like she genuinely wanted to help. It was also a nice opportunity of spending some time with her.
I remember my American mom told me that her love language is to “spend time with the person that she loves“. Relationships are something that requires care, work, maintenance and attention. That is how relationships grow. I have not really communicated with my land lord recently, not as much as i used to before a lot of things happened in my life. Maybe I was just longing for an opportunity to re-connect and to catch up on things with her since she does genuinely care about me. And when opportunity occurs, even if it comes with a heavy cost, I am fine with it.
