In a specific example, I am referring to where I live. My family had the opportunity of a life time after working several years with an organization. We were able to have a home built and purchase it outside of conventional methods. While it is all legit, I am constantly reminded that I am in an area which is not the best for me or my family. To begin with, the "development" was built against a lot of opposition from the neighbors. There was a large chunk of land that the community services office purchased on the cheap and were allowed to build about 8 houses on that land. The neighborhood the land was situated in is an older neighborhood and the majority of the people living in the neighborhood have been there their whole lives or were raised nearby. It has roots in American History and the people here have that lovely southern charm. When I say charm, you should hear black undertones of sarcasm. Against their protest, the new homes were built and we were placed in one of them.
Don't get me wrong, I love our home and it is beautiful to me. While it is not perfect in anyway, it belongs to us and we have no plans of going anywhere. (However if we become filthy rich by accident, there will be a vacancy here. I am sure of it.) We have been here nearly ten years.
There is always opposition or some type of drama here and it all amounts to jealousy and hate which can only be found in the deep south. To begin with, I am nearly the only white permanent resident here. This makes things difficult for me. Not because I am the minority but I am obviously "not from around here." I think that the existing neighborhood has accepted the fact that we are here to stay but our children are constantly picked on and whenever I have to walk past the end of my street for something, a cop will ask me what in the hell I think I am doing walking in this neighborhood. I can even go and pick up something from the grocery store or a child from a game and the minute I pass a patrol car, I am followed because I am "out of place." They must think I am up to no good. It doesn't help much that there is a high homeless rate in this city and there is a severe problem with prostitution and drugs. Hello officers! Not EVERYONE fits those categories.
Once, in broad daylight, I was walking to the bus stop to get our children off the bus and a cop stopped in the middle of the road and asked me what was I doing there. I told him I lived a few houses over and he told me to show him some ID and that, it was not good to provide false information to the police. Yea, I flipped him my ID. He was embarrassed. I told him that it is not a good idea to "assume" things about people. Especially when they don't fit the description of the "typical out of place white female in this neighborhood." When he gave me my ID back, I just walked away. He had no other reason to keep me there and the bus was already at the stop. I gathered the children and walked back home.
There are also people who are around who have ill intent to ANYONE that is not an ingrown stitch in the fabric of this community. They like to start trouble. They play cruel tricks on people because they are jealous of what others have and dislike outsiders. These people cause problems and laugh when their efforts result in fights and arguments and disagreements. One such trick was played on me not long after we moved here. While it is something I would rather not talk about, to this day, I still get blamed for something I had no part of.
If there was a way I could prove my innocence, I would do it in a minute. Even if it meant giving up this house and going back to renting for the rest of my life.
Like I said before. I like my home. I like my yard. It is nice and it belongs to my family. However, some neighbors just need to quietly go away or (in a different life) we could just chisel out our hunk of land here and put it down somewhere else far, far away from here. I try to keep to myself and I do everything in my power to keep people out of my life. Too much drama. This place around here simply will not let things be. They want to cause my family and my marriage to fall and that is why they cause trouble.
Jealousy.
The result of helping me has made my life a living nightmare. They should have thought about what they were doing before they put me in this spot. There were other spots but apparently, it was the thought of "you are blessed to have your own home! You should be grateful!" Whatever.
Yeah, no digression here. No funny here. I am sorry. Bad day.
Also, I hit draft instead of publish so this is a day late. There will be another post later.
What do YOU think?
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