A big batch of Irish oatmeal for the week.
inspired by a conversation with the man taking away our trash.
Jim drove his red pickup truck backwards down our driveway. Right on time.
Earlier that morning, I’d received a text from the property manager for our apartment. She told me that one of our neighbors in the apartment complex next door had complained.
The week before I spent 10 days in the hospital with our youngest kiddo, we had gone through our garage and dragged out what we didn’t need to keep any longer.
A desk with broken drawers, cracked on the top.
A queen-size bed frame, missing some hardware and the bottom part.
A broken and rusted bike that had been too small for our youngest for years.
Some bags of clothes.
We intended to hire a van and find the transfer station closest to our new home as soon as possible. And then, the crisis hit.
The last 6 weeks since we left the hospital have been non-stop ragged and hard. I’d look at the little pile next to our garage door and think, “We’ll make time for that this weekend.” And then, something else intervened.
Now someone had complained to the property manager. And she wanted me to take care of it. That day.
I could feel the heat rising to my face as I read the text.
What? I don’t have the time to deal with this today!
I took a deep breath, then four more.
Why would a neighbor complain about this? Someone has been watching us and deciding we’re not good neighbors because there’s a little pile of things to take to the dump on the driveway next to our door?
I closed my eyes and practiced some box breathing.
My chest settled, the flapping wings no longer beating against my heart.
And then I sat down to meditate and asked myself: “What are you afraid of, right now?”
It rose up, pretty clearly.
I’m worried we don’t belong here.
We moved away from the island where we have lived for the last 15 years in March. A few weeks later, our youngest child started to crumble, requiring all of my time and attention. We had only begun to unpack and settle into our new home. Everything else still felt like we were in transition.
And then, a huge and terrifying transition.
With everything else in our lives uncertain, the idea that a neighbor complained and the property manager ordered us threw me into a tizzy of feeling that I didn’t belong. Within 30 seconds, we were on the street and looking for another home next February.
Oh, the speed with which an anxious mind can make a disaster.
Because I was able to cope with the blow of this unexpected moment, and find my calm, I could turn to my curiosity instead of living in resentment.
That’s when I realized that having lived in a house, down a long driveway, on an island may not have prepared us well for living in an apartment in the city. On Vashon, we could keep bags of clothes and things to take to the thrift store on the front porch for a couple of weeks. We could keep a little pile of things to take to the dump until we could borrow a friend’s truck for the afternoon.
In the back of an apartment driveway? Not so much.
Time for us to change.
I texted her back and said that I’d take care of it.
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