Things I Could Never Thank You For

***What does it mean to mother yourself once you’ve lost your own?***

Kayla Nedza doesn’t know what day she was born. Placed for adoption by her Colombian mother and raised by white parents from the Midwest who are always on the move, she finds herself perpetually out of place. But as Kayla grew up—facing consistent prejudice, digging deeper into her identity as a Latina, establishing precarious patterns with men—her life felt like a constant emotional struggle. When she thought she had some answers, her mother suddenly passed away. Ultimately, she’s forced to learn what it means to mother herself through it all.

An ode to defining our own rules for womanhood, Kayla Nedza shares stories of how she grappled with a push and pull between who she thinks she should be and who she’s growing into. Things I Could Never Thank You For is a collection of soulful stories revealing how to parent ourselves through heartache and pain as we navigate through the confusing and often unexpected experiences we wrestle with in love, death, sex, race, and loneliness.

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Author’s Note

Things I Could Never Thank You For is a love letter I wrote to anyone who has asked themselves: “What do I have to do to be loved?”

In a therapy session during a deep season of healing, my therapist gave me an exercise to write letters to people. The goal was for me to put words to the big feelings I had. She said I didn’t have to share the letters with them, but the goal of the exercise was to strengthen my ability to identify and communicate my feelings. I had never planned on sharing these letters with people, but I couldn’t ignore the deep pull I had to share the reflections I had written about those people I never got to thank or give gratitude to in my life.

These stories are about my stumbling through womanhood after losing someone who taught me how to be a woman. I used this book as a way to show myself that I could teach other people what she taught me, while also remembering the instructions she gave me to come back home to myself.

My prayer for you as you’re reading this book is to reflect on your relationship with yourself and who has helped to shape the way you experience yourself. Moreover, my hope is that you create your own set of directions whenever you need to come back home to yourself.