Neighbors

Neighbors are a fact of life. Well, unless we live in the middle of a dessert. We all have neighbors. Some, more than others. Me? Until recently, although living in a condominium (formerly an apartment) complex, I only had two immediate neighbors. One below, and one on one side, both of whom were single. They also are very quiet. The spaces above me, and on the "other" side have been empty since I moved here six whole years ago. I've been very lucky. And it has been lovely. My apartment has been my retreat, my refuge from the world. In fact, it has been so quiet, I completely overlooked the possibilty of ever acquiring two more sets of neighbors.

I have been very spoiled in my life. The only time where I have lived surrounded by people was in my dorm college room. And honestly, I was never in there except to sleep when pretty much everyone else was sleeping. So neighbors were never an issue. Before six years ago, I've always lived in places with other folks, but I was always on the top floor and, at most, always had just one immediate neighbor. So, my experience at hive living has been non-existent. Yes. Hive living. Like bees. An apartment building (whatever it's legally called) is like a hive where everyone lives going about their business. And the constant busy-ness is very much like a hive where there's always some activity going on with the worker bees. The only difference being no queen.

So you see? Complacency can be a dangerous thing. In December, rather like early Christmas presents, I got two new families as immediate neighbors - above, and next door. It's amazingly challenging to me.

Upstairs, they are generally very quiet except for their penchant for dropping things. What's challenging is that at night, they only seem to sleep for 3 hours before getting up and running around over my head (dropping things) for about an hour each time. (Yes, sadly I've watched the clock - royally ticked off.) If I'm lucky, I'll maybe get 6 hours of sleep. My sister who's been "hive" living for years poo-poos my reaction. She basically told me to suck it up, and get ear plugs and a sound machine. The art of napping is looking more and more attractive. Now, if only I can do that at work.

As for my new next door neighbors, they are lovely people. They just tend to live their lives at extremely high volume. Especially the 5-year old girl who only seems to be able to communicate by shrieking. Happy, sad, terrified, busy, it's always in shrieks. Life is often conducted in the hallway directly outside my front door before slamming theirs. Contentiously, the mother and father will yell at the children from their bedroom (which is on the other side of my living room wall). Alternatively, they have a noisy bedroom life which can be disconcerting in the evenings while I'm trying to work or wind down for bed.

My sprititually-minded friends like to remind me that challenges help to teach us to grow and become more tolerant of others. I understand this concept in theory. My sister says I need to learn to live with my neighbors' noise. Obviously, I'm on a steep learning curve, because so far I've been simply sleep-deprived and cranky.