What makes up a fabric of a neighborhood?
I grew up in the same neighborhood all my youth and pretty much everyone who lived in the other houses stayed there until well after I left for college and some are still there.
I have always thought of neighborhoods as unchanging. When my family moved into our current house, it was going to be forever – mostly because I hate packing and moving. I was so excited to be in the absolute best neighborhood and would imagine my kids growing up with the other kids around us.
But just because I don’t plan on moving doesn’t mean that my neighbors thought the same.
Neighborhoods change. And when a thread is pulled from a fabric, it feels like it is unraveling, like the integrity of the piece is lost.
A mourning happens.
However, it’s not like the thread is tossed to the wind and goes away. That thread joins another piece of fabric, another community ready to integrate it and another piece of thread will join the original’s place.
Neighborhoods inevitably change, some more quickly and some more slowly. But just because there is change does not mean the integrity of the neighborhood is lost.
As I learned from a neighbor and friend that they are moving, I was at a lost for words as I took in the news and felt a whole lot of conflicting emotions. Perhaps I was feeling the shock that comes from a new piece of information that unexpectedly shifts the status quo – like news of a pregnancy, a layoff or a death.
I realize that I have been carrying pre-conceived notions and an expectation that life around me will pretty much stay the same. Of course, kids will grow up and changes will happen, but they felt predictable. My neighbors’ moving is a good reminder that I have no control over my external environment, and while things will change, I trust a new piece of thread will come.
