Friday, October 8, 2010

And the people rejoiced: a brief lesson in the joys of schadenfreude?

My across the hall neighbors (affectionately nicknamed "The Drug Dealers") are being evicted.  This makes me happy.  I feel a little guilty about how happy it makes me, but not too much because I was starting to get really quite scared. 

Too many strangers (mostly young males) coming freely in and out of the building (including the somewhat closed off exercise room) using their access.  Too many odd scents/tastes/excessive incense/smoke/other substances my lungs don't like that sometimes waft into my apartment.  Too many late night raging domestic arguments outside my door.  Too many drunken (or possibly stoned) accidental, late night attempts to come into my apartment by mistake and some missing decorations from my door have made me even more nervous than the other stuff.  (Who steals a stick-on Christmas ornament off of someone's door? In October?!)  At least they were thorough and took a strip of the fake ribbon to hang them with; otherwise it would just be unidentifiable and tacky.

I am fairly certain I am not being loving at all.  I've prayed for them without any real commitment, mostly because I live alone and was afraid God would ask me to do something friendly, dangerous, and stupid.  That's also problematic. 

How can a single woman living alone who is antisocial anyway be neighborly/behave in a Christ-honoring but smart way to her neighbors?  Any suggestions?

6 comments:

  1. I'm not sure. But sometimes the tiredness of living with difficult people around makes me wonder whether it's ever OK to take Abraham's approach and just refuse to hang out in the modern-day Sodom & Gomorrahs, if that makes any sense.

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  2. It sucks to live in Gomorrah. :) At least I can be antisocial about it.

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  3. Why is there a Christmas decoration on the door in October?
    I'd say just keep your eyes peeled for opportunities to interact with the neighbors...or you could go do drugs with them...lol.

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  4. I love you, dear bear. :)

    One could say I just wanted to be very sure the Christmas decorations were put up by Christmas this year. Maybe I was competing with the retail world I no longer belong to. (Take that! I've got 'em up before Halloween!) One could also say I realized that if I never took them down, I would never be too lazy to put them up. So many possibilities. :)

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  5. It makes the door a LOT easier to recognize if, say, you're like me and get lost in institutional buildings easily. Or if you go into a serious pain-induced brain fog every so often.

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