I think I might have come across a little...um...hostile in my last post. I certainly didn't mean to sound that way, I promise. We LOVE our new home, we love our new neighborhood...I think I have just been a little bit suprised at how different being neighbors with people is than I think the way it used to be. Neighbors were neighbors. Neighbors picked up eachother's mail when they were out of town. Neighbors borrowed eggs when they were making a pecan pie and only had 2 eggs in the fridge instead of the 3 that the recipe calls for. Neighbors smile and wave and know the names of eachother's kids. Am I old fashioned? Am I idealistic? We literally only had 1 neighbor in the house we lived in on Broadway...and you know how wonderful they were. Two words...breakfast tacos. So, I guess it has been a bit of a let-down in the last month when I met our next-door neighbor in the driveway because we are coincidentally getting our mail at the same time. She is a nice lady, married to a man with developing Alzheimer's, so bless her heart, she has her plate full as it is. In our short conversation, I asked her a little about everyone on our street. She simply stated, "oh, I don't know. Everyone just kind of stays out of eachother's business. We like it that way." I'm sure I looked like Eeyore walking back to my front door. Now please...don't misunderstand. I do not want or expect to be Susie Neighbor that know's everyones business. But I do know that the lady that lives across the street from us has an aging father that she is caring for. I do want her to know that if she ever needs ANYTHING...especially if Cody could ever help her...I want her to know that we're there. And when Gregory's remote-controlled airplane gets stuck in the tree next door, I would love it if we didn't feel like we had to tip-toe to the door and beg for mercy as we retrieve the plane. I would love for "Escalade Lady" to smile at my children.
So I apologize if I sounded a bit hostile. I really don't mean to be. Maybe a better word is disillusioned. But I throw this question out into the great world wide web....has being a neighbor changed? Are expectations different? Am I completely old-fashioned in wanting some sort of relationship, albeit very minor, with my neighbors? Help me readers....
Three Peas in a Pod
Contributors
- GPaty
- I am just a wife and mommy that does my best daily to love the Lord my God and instill Jesus in my babies' hearts.
3 comments:
growing up our neighbors had cookies ready for us afterschool incase we were out front playing! we live in teh "ghetto of plano" so we try and aviod our neighbors as they are drunk at 3pm in their garage and stumble over to tell us the mailman was late... i am no better i had a road rage incident coming out of our alley as a car was trying to come in adn they honked and yelled at me from inside their car and i realized 2 weeks later it was our neighbor... also the people across the alley live in a violet house and told jared he would have to replace their grass between the outside of their fense and the alley pavement if he drove on it... seriously??? alley grass is that important??? go back to your purple house and leave us alone :)
sadly i think not knowing your neighbors is the norm now. i was inspired by my best friend, kristin, who took muffins to her neighbors when they moved in. at first i said, wait a minute, aren't they supposed to bring you something homemade? but then i realized she had the right Christlike attitude about loving thy neighbor. i loaded adelaide up in her wagon and we took our new neighbors homemade hot cocoa last week. for some reason i was nervous about doing it, but it was a blessing.
For what it's worth, I think you new neighborhood just needs some shaking up. They don't know what they're missing out on... yet. ;)
Post a Comment