No Warning

The next door neighbors are moving. This should not bother me, because ever since they moved in almost two years ago, they have kept very much to themselves. I know they have a baby, because when Susan goes quickly in and out of her garage in her van, I can see a baby's car seat in her car, and once I saw the actual little guy himself.  Susan moved back to town from Tahoe to be pregnant and give birth and (ostensibly) to raise her child in a good family-oriented neighborhood. Her new husband (who has already raised at least one child) has been amiable, but in that "he always seemed like such a nice guy before we found out he was a wife-beater" way, and D. and I were saying to one another a few days ago that we disliked and distrusted him.

(And now I'm also paranoid that he has bugged our house and just because of that less-than-charitable eavesdropped conversation, they're moving. But that's just how my mind works.)

But here's what really bothers me to no end about them leaving - besides the fact that I'm concerned it has something to do with us bringing down the value of the neighborhood with our "do-it-yourself" demolition/reconstruction aspirations - as we've been working on our front yard, Mike has been talking to us about the project, and hanging out with D. to gaze thoughtfully at the enormous piles of dirt the way men sometimes do toward the end of the afternoon.  Just two days ago, I said, "Yeah, it's a mess now, but it'll be a pretty nice courtyard when we're done. You guys'll have to come on over and have lemonade or margaritas or something when it's finished."  And he said in his amiable-but-not-entirely-so voice, "Yeah, that sounds really good." Then we all had a nice chuckle and everything was friendly and right with the world in our tiny corner of suburbia.

And then today, I pull into our driveway and see a realtors sign in their front yard.  What's up with that? How long had he known they were going to leave? Why didn't he mention it? I mean, really - what's up with that?!!

Here's the thing, though.

How different is what I feel about what he's done from what people in my church might feel about what I've done? What kind of warning did I give them? A little, maybe, to some people. But I also had conversations with people after I was thinking about leaving, and I didn't mention anything to them. And these were people who probably felt they knew me a lot better than I ever thought I knew Mike. 

Hmmm. Gives me something to think about.

But first, sleep.