We have some really high hedges between our house and the tenement next door. I had tried to get our neighbor to trim them last year but he flaked on me so I didn’t get it done last year. The hedges were well over 12 feet tall and when the wind blew they would scrape the side of the house that became very annoying. So, I had a guy come out and do it. He did most of it with hand trimmers and it is cut back. I will have to keep after it from now on. It got so overwhelming and so large that I looked at the task and got anxiety over it. It was well worth it to pay someone to do it. It looks a lot better now.
Part of the reason that I hadn’t done much with it was because of the next door neighbors. I wanted as much between us and them as possible. Unfortunately a hedge does not block out the noise. That just blasts right through it.
This may be a very hard thing to watch, especially for my family. My parents read this blog, my grandparents read this blog. Please understand that I am okay. I had a moment where I was not okay. I needed to express myself and that is what I did. This blog, this is my expression. It is my way of therapy, escape, coping and celebrating. It is my way to share the things I love and also those that hurt. Most of the time I keep the things that hurt bottled inside of me. I don’t want people to know what fears and insecurities I have because often they are quickly dismissed or made to feel invalidated.
I need to express what I was feeling today. Before I do that I need to offer some backstory.
In August of 2011 we moved in to a beautiful little house on a corner of a quiet street. We were surrounded by three family homes on three sides. I wasn’t overly concerned about this because we were on a quiet street. Many people kept to themselves. We quickly learned that the other end of the street was the quiet part and we were next to the loudest most obnoxious and toxic people on the street.
The house we own is beautiful. We fell in love with so many of the features immediately. There is beautiful woodwork and stained glass. There is a porch swing and a nice fenced in back yard. A backyard is great if you can use it. When we go outside our neighbors constant stream of profanity makes any moments outside tense and uncomfortable. The whole of the three family is filled with people who seemingly are there all the time and always outside yelling at each other and swearing up a storm. I can potentially have three teachable moments on the use of swears on the way from the car to the house. I feel trapped in the house because I cannot enjoy being outside.
If we have people over I am tense the entire time because, what if the neighbors are out and carrying on as they do? So I’ve begun to hate our house, the proximity to toxicity has poisoned my once good feelings for the place. It has made me irritable and short tempered. I can’t seem to shake it.
So, I want to sell the house. I first had the idea that we would extreme downsize and move in to a manufactured home. We even went to multiple open houses in a local community and attended a yard sale day to check the place out. We found one that we liked and that slipped through our fingers. I wanted to get to a point where we weren’t just paying to live in a house we loved but a location that we hated. If that meant downsizing like crazy and living in a place that was super small for a few years then that is what it would take.
Cut to today. We went to see a place that is just a bit out of our reach, financially. It was amazing, better than the real estate photos. The kids loved it, I loved it, Allison loved it. Then reality set in and it sent me into a spiral emotionally that I got out in today’s vlog. But know that I am okay and I just needed to express my frustration and fear. But there is also hope and resolve.
