As an adult, certain inevitable situations still seem to strike me with all the horror and wonder of an anxious 8 year-old. The bus commute demands that we must cuddle up with and smell people we wouldn't otherwise encounter. Travel beckons our manners, even if Mr. Elbows with the wet cough isn't planning on sharing the armrest on your six hour flight to Cleveland. And living somewhere, anywhere, forces us into relationships with our neighbors, for better or for worse. These are all the things that no matter how many times I go through, I seem to cowar in temporary fear. Oh come on, you remember getting paired up with the smelly kid for gym class sit-ups. It's that same thing.
This first week in our new flat has brought about more than a few strange and uncomfortable encounters with the neighbors. In fact, we've started the search for another apartment. Gasp! Yes, it's as bad as the gym class fart.
And while I doubt any of you dear readers has behaved so poorly as to stir your own neighbors to up and leave a week after moving in, I will say it's never a bad thing to remember that we do live near people and our actions absolutely affect them.
I'll just maybe step up a rung or two higher on the ol' soapbox and encourage you with the following neighborly tips.
1) Welcome your new neighbors with a knock at their door, a brief introduction and oh, a pan of something yummy. You set the tone.
2) Okay so nobody knocked your door and welcomed you to the 'hood? Go say 'hello.' Be the neighborly person. You set the tone here, too.
3) It's time to sleep train your bundle of joy? Drop off a pack of ear plugs and some chamomile tea. Explain your phase, and your neighbors will nod their heads in sympathy as little Henry belts out another round of "waaaaaaaa!"
4) Party time? Hello! Invite your neighbors, or at least drop by with a bottle of bubbly to apologize in advance for the raucous evening about to unfold. (You ARE raucous, oh yes, I've heard about you!)
5) If you're in an apartment setting, where walls and floors may do little to dampen your noise, function with mindfulness. I suppose that means, step lightly, close--don't slam cupboard doors, and be sensitive to your neighbor's bedtime.
6) And I'll end here because this is turning into a sermon. Be GOOD to each other. Yes, I'm realizing I could have just written that and been done in one point, but it wouldn't have been as therapeutic for me.
How are you amazingly neighborly? Leave a comment. I'm dying to add to my repertoire.
xoxo
Lady of the House
Oh, Lady, you have the worst luck with apartments! The husband and I are grateful to live in a neighborhood filled with good salt-of-the-earth midwestern folk. During a recent bout of snow, I was rescued from shoveling by a kind neighbor with a snowblower. I marched myself over to his house with a loaf of pumpkin bread as thanks. It was the least I could do!
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