Neighbors

Neighbors know a lot about you even if you don’t know them very well.  I realized that by living next to some people recently.  We were close enough to jump to their window if we wanted (or so it seemed).  And since we were staying in the upstairs room and it is warm here, we often had our windows open.

Some mornings we would hear their teen and preteen kids getting ready for school.  Not the good mornings.  On the good mornings we heard nothing.  On the mornings when it was harder to get the kids moving we heard it.  We would hear the preteen girl having a breakdown over things.  Her voice would carry through our window.  I would think, “Oh boy, she is having a hard morning.”  And then you would hear a parent responding back in a raised voice.  Never anything bad, but I also don’t think I ever heard anyone yell, “I love you!”  It’s just not something you yell in your house much I guess.

We would hear when the kids had friends over and were having a good time.  There would be kids running around outside and laughter and play.  Good times and bad times, we would hear.

So I started thinking that if we can hear them I wonder what all they have heard over the years.  They have been neighbors for a lot of years.  Long enough to hear the kids in the house where I was staying grow up.  And there has been some raised voices in this house too.  Or when there is a lot of family over there can be a lot of loud voices, so I am sure they hear all of that.  And how many conversations have they enjoyed listening to as we sat around the pool?

Then my mind went to back in the days when I was a teenager and our neighbors.  It is embarrassing to think about actually.  How many times did the neighbors see us sitting in the car with our boyfriend?  Or worse, when we stood outside and hugged good-night.  How many times did they hear arguing in our house?  And did any of them see my sister chase me down the street with refried beans and then when she caught me?

Neighbors get to do the friendly chit-chat with you and it seems like they don’t really know you, but really they know you probably better then your friends do.  They hear the good, bad and the ugly, yet they are kind enough to still be friendly.