Just All So Weird in Everyday Ramblings

I hope you are not getting sick of the dahlias. These yellow ones were so cheerful a few days ago.

Next month I will have lived here 13 years. When I moved in, I barely saw my upstairs neighbor. She was quiet, a single woman, maybe 15 or 20 years younger than me. When she received packages, I noticed that she had a lovely but unusual first name. I think she had been here at least a few years before me.

There is also a guy up on the top floor that was here when I moved in but that is another story.

Anyway, one day at work I had occasion to realize that the woman upstairs worked in the same organization as she emailed me for information. I sent her a cheerful email back and we exchanged friendly notes for a few weeks. She told me she had three cats (and you are only supposed to have two) and asked me not to tell the manager. I assured her I would not.

She has not spoken to me since.

It turns out that she worked closely with the person I replaced at work who had moved to her department after marrying the head of the department next to the one I worked in. You might remember that the place I worked, was more like a den of vipers than an actual functional workplace and the people who took an instant (day one) dislike to me had influenced my upstairs neighbor in some bizarre way.

Twelve years. We interacted at work on occasion, formally and very politely. It always made me so sad. She had cats, I have cats, we got packages from the same places, we could have at least been friendly. Especially in the early days of the pandemic.

Yesterday she moved out.

I will never know. I saw her briefly chatting with Charity out in the breezeway when she was bringing in U-Haul boxes last week. Charity knows everything. She told me (back when she was speaking to me) that my upstairs neighbor hardly interacted with anyone and rarely had anyone over. So, a good part of this, and maybe all of it, had nothing whatsoever to do with me.

I wish her the best and hope she is going to positive place full of the things that make up a life well lived.

But I am also glad she is gone. This constant reminder of all the awfulness of that job, all the unhappy people being chronically unhappy all over everyone else. The just plain weirdness of her never saying hello or even looking at me, except through the window as I was teaching as she was passing by.

Yesterday when I was down at the garden, a woman stopped by on the other side of the low fence to chat. We ended up talking for almost an hour. She owns a house a few blocks down. She is funny and opinionated and maybe 74. I gave her some of my cinnamon basil. She has some of the most beautiful blue eyes I have ever seen. She is retired now but cut hair for years. We exchanged phone numbers.

I suspect Charity knows her. Charity knows everyone. I wish I could ask her. Maybe I will. Sometimes she will answer a direct question when I see her.

It is just all so weird. But… maybe… fingers crossed… getting less weird?

The ladders and the painters are still here. This is supposed to be their last day.

They did, kind of sort of, in a superficial way, fix the patio railing and paint it yesterday. The manager tells me they are going to redo the hardware on the railings but that is another contractor later in the month. And the siding is still off the outside wall of my kitchen. There will be more pounding in my future.

Anyway, I feel like the upstairs neighbor moving out is a bit of a marker, a milestone, to a more fully integrated retirement where I can let even more of the past go. At least the past that no longer serves me, making room for whatever (possibly joyful thing) comes next.

Last updated October 11, 2022