In Which I Vent

D and I lost it in public with a former neighbor today. Might be a first for me. I realize we shouldn’t have lost our temper, but I also don’t blame D for yelling at someone who was yelling extremely nasty things to me in front of the baby without even giving us a chance to explain. And it was all over how we left our trash in the pickup spot behind their house.

I’m tired of living in an antagonistic, selfish neighborhood. I’m tired of living in a place where if you leave your trash out in a bag instead of a can on trash day, you get called in to the police. Where people shovel snow from their sidewalk but leave the three inches connecting it to where you shoveled because technically it is on your property. Where people call in to complain there is too much noise when you’re trying to help push a postal car stranded in the snow on the street. Where people get upset when you park in a shared parking spot because it is closer to their house than yours.

I’m tired of living in a city where you can’t honk because you might get shot. Where people double park instead of making the effort of pulling into a spot by the curb two feet away. Where finding old beer cans or dog poop over your front step is a normal thing.

I tend to think the best of everyone. I tend to talk nicely to strangers. Dave is perhaps appropriately a bit less naïve, and I’m glad I’m married to someone who isn’t afraid to stand up for us, but I’m tired of being in a place that forces him to do that.

We love where we live now. In less than a week I’ve met countless friendly families, ten year-old girls who ask to hold E and moms who take walks with us. If we left our trash out wrong they would probably offer to help us move it back. There are large green spaces where kids run out playing all the time, without anyone complaining about the noise. There are scooters left out on various properties that just become community toys. The houses here cost half of the houses in our old neighborhood, the people are more modest and the place less impressive, but I would pick living here any time.

It makes me think about how important community is, how important the atmosphere of the neighborhood is. It matters more than some flashy house, and maybe I wouldn’t want E to grow up in some flashy neighborhood anyway. I think back on how content I was growing up in a modest house, how I never once envied my friends in bigger houses because we were happy at home. There are other things I’d rather do with the money we earn, and I’m glad we made this temporary move if only to drive that point home.