Neighbors

When we lived in Germany, we had awful neighbors, three sets of them. I was pleasant to them in the beginning, but once I enrolled in school to get my MBA the remarks started flying. DH and I were just married and I had just finished up my bachelor's about a year earlier. We had no children and I was not working, so it seemed like the logical next step. Then I got an internship with the State of Florida in Frankfurt. So not only was I going to school, I was working for free. My neighbors made comments to me about how "your parents should have taught you how to keep house and raise children," "why would you waste your husband's money on something like school and who would be stupid enough to work for free?". The list was endless and they just got downright nasty. I hated stairwell living and learned to ignore them. (I did have one set of neighbors that we were friends with and were normal, lol)

Anyway, I continued working for free and going to school and then eventually I got a job with the American Consulate in Frankfurt and worked for them well over a year while I finished up graduate school and then had our first child. Stairwell living was our first experience living on post and I hated it.

When we moved back to the States we went to Fort Lewis where after 8 months we qualified for on post housing. I dreaded the thought of being in such close proximity of all those other people. We kept to ourselves and I was back at work after staying home a few years and we were plugging away staying busy. During this time our next door neighbor got in a fight and the cops had to be called because his "buddy" pulled a gun as was threatening to shoot because they were drunk and a window on the car got broken. They moved out and the other neighbors moved out and then Megan and Mark moved in. For almost a year I refused to talk to them or acknowledge them for fear they would lead to turmoil. Eventually I broke down and talked to them and they were wonderful! For the next year and a half Megan and I had the time of our lives taking Thai cooking classes, playing games, traveling with our families to Canada, meeting each other's parents and more. When she left we both cried. We are still halfway across the country from each other but we talk regularly and provide support for each other as we survive deployments and face being a single parent while supporting our Soldier.

I need a Megan here. Instead I have what I refer to as "the freaks". Thankfully though, a moving van came today and the "freaks" are headed to a new adventure and thankfully it is one that does not include living next door to me. I will breathe a sigh of relief that I do not have to worry about my car being boxed in, used condoms being thrown in my yard, their dogs running loose, strange men coming and going at all times of the night while her husband is deployed, etc. (Never mind that my husband found their two year old little girl wandering the street at 7 am in a diaper and a tshirt while it was cold and rainy while trying to see into a storm drain. DH picked her up and went to go to his car to find his cell and call 911 when she pointed to her house and he went up there and knocked and gave her back.) Anyway, I know the end is in sight and these people will soon be out of the way and making someone else's life miserable.

Let's hope the next one works out better.....