When we moved into our home in Germantown, Maryland, I had no idea we would live there for 14 years.
It sat on a cul de sac and was beautiful. A fenced yard, four bedrooms, a den, living room, dining room, and the pièce de résistance, a wonderful, spacious office. The basement was unfinished, but we quickly filled it up with books, exercise equipment, tools, and a TV.
 |
Obviously a real estate photo. Even houses get filters. I wonder if they get anxiety from social media too?
The house on our left was purchased by a woman from Ghana. She had a cat that would walk up to our windows, driving our black lab/Rottweiler mix Sonny crazy. Every year, at the beginning of summer, she would host a huge party that would go all night. And every year I would call the cops at 2AM to break up the noisy party.
To the left of that house was Messy Marvin. At least that’s what the kids called him. Messy Marvin hoarded trash, among other things. He was in his 60s and looked like Al from Al’s Toy Barn on Toy Story 2. I used to go for a run at 4AM most weekday mornings and would see him returning from behind grocery stores with bags fully laden with garbage. While most people take out the trash, Messy Marvin took it in. Lots of it! If you were brave enough to walk up to his door, besides the rancid smell, you could see the garbage piled up to the window. He had sheds in the back yard overfilling. Even his car was full. An old package of ground beef sat on the back deck of the window for at least a year. I suppose he was trying to do brew some home-grown Penicillin in there or something. One of my neighbors said he was walking down the street one day and his pants fell down and she saw his dirty hairy ass. Nosey neighbors rarely miss much in a subdivision. I’m sure that vision traumatized her permanently.
Every five years or so, Montgomery County would come out and declare his house unlivable, fine him 10K and force him to clean it up. That meant a weeklong project contracted out to 1-800-Got-Junk. Guys in hazmat suits filled about 7 large roll-off dumpsters. A worker told me when they opened one of his sheds, a colony of rats streamed out. When the house was finally cleaned and inspected and cleared to move back in, Messy Marvin quickly set about rebuilding his empire.
On our right was a family of four. Their two kids were the same age as ours. When we moved in, they were in first grade and preschool respectively. When we moved out, we had called the cops more than a few times as the now teenaged kids would party on weekends when their parents went away. I only did it because at the time, if cops busted a party of minors, the homeowner was fined for each underage partygoer. I did it to protect my neighbors. Their kids didn’t think so.
Next to them was a family of homeschooled kids. Four to be exact. I have no issue with homeschool. My grandkids are homeschooled. But these were the kind of kids people make bumper stickers about (“Unsocialized” Homeschoolers On Board). You know the little children who are taught to carry themselves and speak like adults? Which is fine, until a child speaks like an adult or tries to reason like an adult to an another adult who is not their parent. The neighbor’s dog had a bad habit of ripping through garbage on trash day. Perhaps it was trying to earn a place on Messy Marvin’s estate. When Barb went over to complain, the seven-year-old girl who answered the door said, “Well Mrs. Munro, you need to do a better job keeping your trash covered!” I wasn’t there to see it, but I’m quite certain smoke billowed out of Barb’s ears.
Next to them was a quiet, older guy who used to be in the FBI. He had a wife and two Bassett hounds that had a bad habit of barking incessantly. The dogs, not his wife.
One house over was another family of four. Then a few houses that had residents that I just waved at occasionally.
As the kids got older, there was some trouble. Our son was bullied by a little shit named DJ while in middle school. DJ lived a few streets over, but him and Dustin went to the same school. I got into it once with DJ’s dad, an overgrown, loudmouthed former college football player who clearly peaked socially and intellectually at 16. But Sonny knew better. One winter day when school was cancelled and all the kids went to the bottom of the street to go sledding, DJ’s mom walked up to us. She was the only normal one in the family. Sonny didn’t think so. While she and Barb talked, Sonny walked up behind her, lifted his leg, and pissed all over the back of her snow pants. She had no idea. And you never want to interrupt a dog while he’s doing his business.
It was a nice neighborhood and even though I don’t like living that close to other humans, I know the kids loved growing up there. They still think of that house as their home. We all drive past it when any of us are traveling through Maryland.
But there was one set of neighbors I only met twice. They lived on the corner of our street. They must have been in their late 50s. The first time was at a yard sale they were hosting. I bought an old-fashioned movie screen, the kind that stands on a tripod and then rolls up to stretch. I was in the early days of shooting promotional videos.
But it was the second meeting a few years later with those neighbors that made the biggest impression. Barb and I were on a walk and saw the man hammering in a For Sale sign. When we asked where they were moving, the floodgates opened.
The couple’s plan was to build a log cabin in North Carolina. They would sell the home in Maryland and retire there. He was retired. She was close behind.
But everything changed at his wife’s routine dental appointment. The dentist found a lesion that he later diagnosed as oral cancer. It was aggressive. She passed away shortly after the cabin was finished.
He was devastated. Broken. The thing they planned together for so many years would now only be enjoyed by him. It wasn’t bittersweet. Just overwhelmingly bitter. His pain was palpable.
As we walked away, even though we didn’t say it, I think both of us realized how short time was. And that even the best laid plans aren’t immune to failure, tragedy, and disappointment.
It changed both of us. We realized that nothing in this life is guaranteed. Well, except death and taxes. And government dysfunction. And shitty Mexican food in Tennessee.
We both purposed to make the most of time and not delay plans.
And I think that’s a good thing for all of us to do.
When I was religious, I remember our pastor always ending his sermon with this:
We don’t know what the next seven days will bring, so until then… and then he gave a blessing.
We don’t know what the next seven hours, days, years, or decades will bring. So, until then:
Go on that trip
Write that book
Make that phone call
Ask for forgiveness
Or do whatever it is you’ve been putting off until the right time comes.
I think the right time is always now.
So do it now.