When Long-Time Neighbors Move

Our next door neighbors of 15 years are moving to a new home five hours away. When they moved in, their two children were around the same age as my youngest son, Steve. Over the years the three of them grew up, along with all the other young children in the neighborhood.

I miss the noise all of our children made as they grew into young adults and I will miss my neighbors. It was nice having someone I knew well living next door. We relied on each other for that extra egg to make brownies, to go together to neighborhood events and to gather up mail and newspapers when we weren’t home. Someone each of us could count on, just in case…

 Perry, Steve and Emily, 1996

Thinking about all of this, I realized that you can’t have reached middle age -- and beyond -- without developing some philosophies about life, the things we think to be true, if not for the world, than at least for ourselves:

~~ Life isn’t fair, no matter how much we wish it to be.

~~ Time moves much too quickly for our tastes and faster as we get older.

~~ If you really like a certain food, chances are good that it’s bad for you.

~~ If you take a book to read at the doctor’s office while you wait, you will be called in before you can get your coat off.

Two of my favorite philosophies of life are that I Don’t Like Change Much and that Things Happen for a Reason. I know. There is a definite conflict in those two statements. I don’t pretend that any of this has to make sense.

On any given day, I will utter one or the other statement, matching them to what is happening around me. And to my surprise, people sometimes listen to me. I notice that often young people expect us, at our venerable ages!, to have a little wisdom to impart, seeing as how we have been around the block (and around, and around…).

It ain’t so. I think we learn as we age, but there always seem to be new situations erupting around us that we have never seen the likes of before, so our otherwise hard-earned wisdom is not much help.

I think it’s fine to mourn a little for what was, at least until we see how what will be turns out. I wish our friends the best of everything as they embark on their new adventure. I am sure that our new neighbors will be wonderful people and I am looking forward to getting to know them, because, you know, Things Happen for a Reason.

By Teresa K. Flatley

www.boomthis.com

4/08