So, the whole concept of neighbors has changed a lot in my world over the years.

When I was growing up, we knew all of our neighbors. I knew the Eshelman family next door. They had kids who went to the same school. Even when I lived in that house as a married person/mom, Mr. Eshelman still lived next door. There were people I knew across the street, up the road, and everywhere around me.

In 2018, I cannot say I know all of my neighbors. And in general, I would say I am probably NOT a good neighbor. We tend to ignore our lawn. Jack, our cat, roams the neighborhood. (He is fixed, at least!) Tiny is constantly sneaking out of our yard, doing who knows what. My garden looks like something out of a Tim Burton film. And my front porch leaves a lot to be desired.

I completely take advantage of the fact that I live on a dead end street with minimal traffic. And I truly don’t care what my yard or porch looks like.

I say all of this for a reason.  Ready?

I had a great day yesterday. Today was chaotic and ended, work-wise, on a weird note. By the time I got home, my patience was gone and my energy was low. I pulled up to my little yellow house and started to unload all of my stuff. That’s when I saw an envelope jammed into the door.

It just said, “Neighbor” on it.

Immediately, I assumed that someone in our area had an issue with us. My mind raced… Was Jack terrorizing their cat? Had Tiny trashed their yard? Were they going to request that I clean up my porch so it doesn’t look like it belongs in a holler’ somewhere? Maybe they were tired of the way I park… or the way I turn around at the end of of our little gravel road.

I didn’t know, but I was immediately on the defensive. And I was exponentially irritated. I walked into the house with all my bags, the mail, the packages from Amazon, and was greeted by our lovely puppies in their cage. They were whining. And Tiny had chewed through her brand new harness.

At that point, the combination of everything made me want to just explode. My work day, the note, the dogs….

So I took a deep breath and dropped all the stuff. I let the crazy puppies out of their cage. I put away what I could, and then I took a deep breath. I opened the note that said, “Neighbor.”

Care to guess?

I laughed. A good part of the stress left my body as I laughed. It was a note, and business card, from a ‘new’ realtor in the area. I have no idea what he was doing, putting his info on my tiny house, but it all went straight into the recycling.

So I share this with you to ask…. do you every do this? Do you get mail, or a note, or a side-eye, or whatever… and immediately go to the worst-case scenario?  I know I cannot be alone. This was a weird moment in my day. It was also a reminder that mysterious notes are likely someone trying to sell me something!