Comradeship // Freechat

I feel this deep down.

My family and I live in a subdivision in suburbia. Single-family homes with ridiculous setback requirements from our sidewalkless road. We know our immediate neighbors and that’s about it. There’s the old lady with the tiny dog, whose son’s family lives down the hill and complains that she sees us more than them. And there’s the retirees who use the house as their “weekend house” while taking long bike rides around the area. And then there are people in our subdivision I have never seen, outside of them mowing their lawn and at our annual HOA meetings — which is its own cruel joke of an organization.

Most suburbanites are fearful people. I may not see my neighbors outside, but they make themselves seen on our neighborhood Facebook group. “Did anyone hear that loud boom?” “I’m at home with the kids and there’s TWO DOGS OUTSIDE” “This package was delivered here. If it’s yours you can pick it up from our porch.” The weirdest posts are the ones that assume our neighborhood has a community identity. Like the time a huge construction dumpster was placed outside of someone’s house instead of to the neighborhood that has a similarly spelled name, “Lol this could only happen in our neighborhood 😂😂😂” Call our neighborhood a community all you want. It’s not going to change the fact that you drive your car around the loop to visit the other wine moms.

We have a pond in the middle with a path that I maintain between visits from a contracted landscape company. When we moved in years ago an old guy did most of the maintenance. He was nice and I liked helping him out, but he moved away. No one really complains about the path when I don’t have time to mow it or trim back bushes. In fact sometimes other people mow it on their own. Most of the time they tear ruts into the mud or mow it as short as a golf course green, all of which makes walking on it difficult for awhile. They could reach out to me about it, and I could reach out to them. But it never happens.

I’ve sent emails to see if anyone wants to help out. I’ve tried to organize clean up days. Enthusiastic responses every time. Zero turn out. It’s fine though. I don’t mind doing it, neither does my partner. The community garden the developers of the neighborhood built is basically my second garden. And if someone’s gotta eat the black berries and mulberries along the path it might as well be me.

Sometimes I honestly feel like we’re the only family who goes outdoors. I’m sure when our neighbors drive by and see my family and I hanging out in the front yard on lawn chairs with a kiddie pool and sidewalk chalk and toys everywhere they think we’re Cousin Eddie.