Wednesday was a sad day at our house. Our next-door-neighbors, who have lived here for nearly six years, finished three days of packing and left for a new home in Texas. They were pretty much the perfect neighbors: our age with kids, friendly and easy to talk to but not ever in our business.
Their kids and our girls spent nearly every day playing together in the summers, and usually hooked up after school as well. That relationship was perfect, too. Their kids never came wandering into our home uninvited, nor did our kids ever enter their house without permission. There were very occasional minor disagreements, but generally they got along together very well.
I’m not sure it’s really hit our girls what has happened yet. They gave their friends hugs and yelled goodbye, but never acted sad or disappointed. My wife tells me that is developmentally normal for their ages. I’m sure soon we’ll start hearing about how they miss their friends and are sad they’ve left us.
The good news is our new neighbors, who may move in as soon as this weekend, have two girls that look about the same ages as M. and C. While there’s no guarantee they’ll get along, kids that age don’t have a whole lot of trouble making friends. I would bet everything works out. We can only hope the parents are as good neighbors as our departed ones.
Watching them load up and move out reminded S. and I of something important: moving sucks. We are glad we love our home and neighborhood because we don’t want to go through that any time soon.