Peace

I've posted a few times about the problems we've had with our neighbors. It hasn't been a pleasant 17 months since things got ugly. We've been mistreated and wronged by them. Over these months I've had to train myself to "think happy thoughts" literally because of my mind-wanderings and ruminations full of anger and hate toward them. After a long time I was finally able to sort of put my mind to rest and not waste so much energy on them. There was a time that as soon as I got into my car to drive home, I would think of them. I would send evil thoughts toward him whenever i saw him in his backyard. Many times I've actively ignored them when I've been outside. Yucky situation to say the least. I've hated it all. And many times, over these months, I've thought I should just go over and say how ridiculous all of this is and let's just forget about it. I thought about bringing them our Christmas bread and CD. But then I'd think of all the rude things that have happened or been said or whatever. My flawed human nature would kick in and I decided i was just going to leave things the way they were. Even though it was totally affecting me in a very negative way, I decided to leave it alone.

Then the Winds of Oz came through (seriously, I heard they were 72 MPH winds the other night!). Our trampoline careened into their yard. When Doug went back over to leave our note, he saw that "M" (i've always referred to him as Jackass, but i guess i'll call him "M" here) was in his backyard working on the trampoline. So he and Doug worked on the trampoline in the bitter -12 degrees with the crazy winds to insure that it wouldn't continue on its path of destruction that night. Doug said M was surprisingly civil and cool about it and very helpful and concerned about salvaging the trampoline. Doug finished disassembling it yesterday and got it back into our yard.

So today, I made another batch of chocolate chip pumpkin bread, wrapped a bow around it and wrote a note on the back of our Christmas picture. Grabbed the boys and brought it over to them tonight. His wife, "A" invited us in. I really really really did not want to go in. I simply wanted to say thank you for your help and Merry Christmas. But we went in, shared a few laughs about the trampoline, hands were shaken and home we went.

Will they be close friends as so many other neighbors we've been blessed to know have become? Highly doubtful. But I am relieved. A weight has been lifted. And I am so grateful.