Nikki Kolman – Medical Sciences
‘Iedereen gelooft dat talent hebben een kwestie van geluk is; maar niemand denkt dat geluk een kwestie van talent kan zijn.’
(Jacinto Benavente)

A relationship since Easter of 1992 / cohabitation contract 10 November 1994

&

INGRID MOLEMA (59)

pharmacology (1983-1988), PhD degree in 1992,
Professor of Life Sciences at the Faculty of
Medical Sciences/UG

NICOLIEN WIERINGA (67)

pharmacology (1974-1984), PhD degree in 2001, retired research policy officer at the UMCG, coach for PhD students, volunteer at Slachtofferhulp Nederland [Victim Support Netherlands] and the National Forest Service.

When Ingrid came to my house for the first time, I had a shy cat called Minou. The cat instantly climbed onto her lap. I thought, the cat accepts her, I’ve found my wife!
Our romance had just begun when Ingrid told me that she was leaving for America. My reaction was: Do your thing. I wasn’t exactly sad about it and was busy with all kinds of things myself. Of course, she had to go and I stayed here. Anyway, she only stayed there for two years rather than three, as initially planned.
The secret of our relationship is that we give each other space. I obtained my PhD degree in 2001 and then worked in Amsterdam for four years. On Monday mornings, Ingrid used to take me to the train, and on Wednesday evenings I would come back exhausted. She’d have dinner ready by then.
In 2009, we went to the United States together for one year. I was a postdoc in biology at the UG and my employment came to an end. We let out our house here, including the cats. For me, it was like jumping in at the deep end. But I had the time of my life.
With Ingrid, I feel safe and at ease. We can say everything to each other. I am happy to have someone by my side who cares about me. And, of course, I care about her. 
Ingrid always gives me experience gifts. One such gift was when we went sheep herding on the Drenthe heath. We also experienced all kinds of things on our travels. For example, an exciting hike in the White Mountains. It happened sometime in May, in a fairly northern area, and it was still quite cold. Two ladies with a bottle of water and two packs of Sultanas hit the trail.  We had bought a map and planned out a route. However, we hadn’t looked carefully at the altitude markers and hadn’t realized that the route would sometimes go uphill steeply and then downhill again.
We are now spending a lot of time in Zeegse. Ingrid’s family used to own a holiday home here in the woods. Two years ago, we demolished and rebuilt it. We do a lot ourselves. Recently, we had to cut down a tree that was at risk of falling. We took it down together with our arborists.’

‘Nicolien is kind, socially engaged, and smart. She is more comfortable talking about things in depth than I am. I tend to lean towards elaborate stories about things I’ve experienced. We complement each other very well.
Nicolien was the coordinator of the Pharmacy science shop for medicine. New linoleum was laid in her room and then she temporarily moved in close to the room of the PhD students in pharmacokinetics, of which I was also one. One day, she was completely overwhelmed. She didn’t know how to make a table in Word Perfect and was swearing in front of the computer. I rushed to help her.
As it turned out, we liked each other and wanted to continue seeing each other. But I also aspired to have an academic career. I was 27. I had established contacts at the University of Texas in Dallas and went there to conduct new research. After only two weeks, I had an argument with my supervisor. The person in question saw me as very threatening. I am a rather good researcher, so I quickly had experiments up and running. He asked me: ‘How is it possible that you set up your experiments in a week, while it takes your English colleague a month?’ I was hanging on the phone with Nicolien for as long as I needed to vent, until I ran out of money. Back in the Netherlands, I moved in with her. In 2009, I went to America again, this time on a sabbatical. This time, I asked Nicolien to join. For a year, I worked in the lab of a colleague from Harvard Medical School. We acted as if I was a postdoc, while secretly I had been a professor for five years.
We are each-other’s first wives. I had been involved with men in the past, but I always wondered if that was indeed what I wanted. Both in private life and at work, we have never received strange or rejecting comments about our relationship. Except Dallas, a republican stronghold. Nicolien was there with me, and I mentioned that I wanted to take her along to a lab party. One of the analysts sat next to me in the flow cabinet where you run your experiments. Above the Bunsen burner, he suggested that I should not say out loud at that party that I had a girlfriend. It was not done there. I told him: “Too bad – it’s my party too.”’

TEXT: ELLIS ELLENBROEK