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Blondie's out of these apartments.

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  • Blondie's out of these apartments.

    Some of you remember my awkward run-ins with my diagonal downstairs neighbor. She was a nice enough lady but kind of off. One time I was in a hurry and didn't really respond to whatever she said to me as I was hurrying around the corner to catch the bus and she yelled at me. Another time some little girl who may or may not have lived here told me "[Blondie's real name] says you're mean." Getting gossip about me second-hand: nice. Other times she would say hi to me and I was always careful to nicely respond despite my frustration with her odd behavior, such as seeming to hide from me or announcing to me where I was going, or making comments on my phone conversations when I was getting my mail. Sometimes people don't mean anything by that but it makes me feel so weird. I have a coworker who does it. She's a nice lady but I don't like her because of it. I feel bad about that and about how I felt about Blondie. What I believe in and fail at so many times is moving past those awkward/bad/frustrated feelings about people and reaching out to be a friend and make the effort to move toward loving them. (That's what Jesus did.)
    Here's why she no longer lives here (chain of events):
    --October 8th was my birthday but I had to schedule myself off not for that, but because our apartments were being inspected by people from the management company shortly after that. I didn't know when it was going to happen so I took the soonest day I could. I've been working two jobs since August and I have medical stuff so a lot of times it's not an acceptable level of clean. Well, to me anyway.
    --October 9th (don't remember): I noticed Blondie still had the living room chair on the porch. We had just received notice that we could only have patio furniture out there and that there'd be warnings. I also noticed she hadn't changed her wreath to a Fall one, but I know there were times she'd hole herself up in that apartment for days. I figured she was depressed. I thought about calling for a welfare check but I thought I saw her outside with her dog so I thought I'd watch and see. The inspection came the next week, I think? It's all fuzzy; I work too much.
    --Some weeks later a man and lady were helping her clean out her apartment. I've seen a man there before and assumed it was a family member helping her out. Her dog is a service dog so that made sense. I wondered if she were just moving or if management was making her move due to issues with the dog and some other things. A couple of days in I offered drinks or cleaning supplies to the lady that was helping out. That's when she said it: "That was my sister that lived here." Was. That gave me pause. I didn't want to know. But today as I passed by the empty unit this morning I made a decision. I had to know. I came home a little while ago and checked. Yes, she passed away. It was the day after my birthday/cleaning day. She was only 10 years older than me, not 20 years older as I had thought.

    I never saw any ambulance or anything. That probably all happened while I was at work. I do remember the dog barking at some point and I wish I'd called for a welfare check. There are a few things I'd go back and change if I could. I just figured eventually I'd move or she would and I wouldn't have to deal with the weirdness. Now there's permanent weirdness.

    I'm sorry, S. I could've tried to be a friend to you. I could've at least been a little nicer. Now that I have hindsight, I recognize the pain in your sister's face. She must've known about your difficulties with people like me. I'm sorry that I didn't sooner get over the things you did probably very innocently. I think of myself as a forgiving person but sometimes I prove that wrong. The only thing I can do now is try to change from this.

    Edited to add: chatting with my other neighbor who lives above her unit to see if there was anything odd I missed that could've helped. He confirms her dog wasn't a service dog and she was made to get rid of it. And she wasn't disabled but had issues. Yeah, I think she really did need someone to reach out to her.
    Last edited by Food Lady; 11-21-2019, 09:02 PM.
    "Is it hot in here to you? It's very warm, isn't it?"--Nero, probably
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