Won't You Be My Neighbor?

image by Haynes Photography

Dear Potential New Neighbors:

Thanks for talking to me before the real estate agent showed up. I was just out there in my backyard, battling with The Garden That Threatens To Engulf My House when you waved hello from the neighboring deck. That was nice of you.

And then you came around to the side yard and clearly wanted to converse. I have to say, I felt a bit giddy at that moment: drunk on the possibility of talking to real, live people. You see, I work from home. And today, my longest conversation with anyone outside of my cats was 30 seconds on the phone with the husband, about something that I can't even recall.

So you -- and your desire to interact -- caught me a little bit off-guard. I'm usually pretty good socially. I can hold a conversation about almost anything with almost anyone. But I was rusty tonight. So if I came off weird, please forgive me. I don't know why I felt like I had to explain the random swing set at the bottom of my yard. Well, actually, your two adorable kids are probably the reason. I didn't want anyone getting their hopes up about playing with the neighbor kids. No kids here. Just two lazy adults and one idle swing set left from the last family. And me babbling about it.

Other than that bit of rambling from me, I guess the conversation went okay. Right? Neighbor?

Yours truly,
Jennifer

Comments

[tj]

We live in a "professional adult" gated community. By professional adult that means no children, no loud music, and you may as well be retired. Anyways, a grandchild of one of our neighbors stopped me while I was weeding to say hello, and needless to say I gushed with happiness. Good to know I'm not alone.

[remabulous]

I feel your excitement here. I work from home, too, except for a couple days a week I elected to work in a bookstore in order to not lose all normal social skills. I am sure it was nowhere near as weird as it seemed, but I am completely with you on the whole "losing the ability to talk normally" phenomenon. Here's hoping you have fun new neighbors shortly with at least one working from home so you can have fun lunches together!

[heidiannie]

Babbling and rambling? It sounds like you held up your end of the conversation quite well. They just wanted to say hi and I'm sure your babbling came with a smile and your rambling with a throaty chuckle that is quite attractive. ENJOY YOURSELF- Jennifer-you are a lot of fun!

[liz elayne lamoreux]

oh i so get it. i work from home as well and if someone calls in the middle of the day i talk her ear off. i can't imagine if we had new, social neighbors move in next door. that would be beyond exciting.