Won’t You Be My Neighbor: The Value of Neighborly Community

May 14

I was recently listening to a Mel Robbins Podcast. Mel talked about various stages of life and it got me thinking. She said something like in high school up until about eighteen you travel as ‘a group’ with your friends; by twenty, you no longer travel as a group from activity to activity. From the ages 20 to 50 you in fact spend more time with your co-workers than you do with your friends and family (unless of course you work from home), and by the time you are 50 you spend the majority of the time with yourself, particularly as you exit or change your work and family roles. That got me thinking.

Ways community has changed

I moved to Dallas in 2013. It was a HARD move, mainly because I worked long hours, had a few friends, and just had no work-life balance. I struggled over the next decade to establish strong friendships that were local. Not to say that I don’t have strong friendships here, but I was comparing myself to my mother’s generation when her best friend, our neighbor, came to our house (or vice versa) daily. Does that happen in your world these days?

Let me backup A LOT. I grew up in a small town, in a house on Main Street until I was in high school. We left our back door unlocked, and our neighbors would stop by on the regular to say hello, check in, borrow eggs or sugar and the same was true about us. We visited the neighbors and truthfully my parents often sent me down the street to eat at a neighbor’s house (because I was more likely to eat vegetables and a well balanced meal in someone else’s home than complain and brood on my own). The phrase, ‘it takes a village’, was no exception for my childhood. We sat at our neighbor’s kitchen table as often as they sat at ours.

In high school I moved to a subdivision and began driving too! So while I wasn’t as home as often, we were somewhat close with our neighbors, they came over, or we chatted periodically and my mother still saw her best girl friends regularly (not quite as much).

After college I traveled for work the first few years, but I mimicked what I had seen as a child. I had friends over for coffee and dessert or a meal, my door was always open. By the time I was working and living at a boarding school in Tennessee, the students could count on me baking at least once or twice a week. Food and company was my safety net and I was always happy to have people in my home.

By the time I was 33, it seemed that the path to my door had become the path less traveled. I was always on the go and there weren't the few or the many that often came over for game night, coffee, or dinner. Granted my priorities had shifted but looking back it's funny how you notice the things you treasure deeply slipping through your hands.

Rebuilding A Friendly Neighborhood Community

Then, 13 months ago we moved to the new neighborhood. I still have projects and purging to do. We still need to clean out the garage and the storage unit to hopefully park the cars and yes - we still have STUFF. But you know what I don’t have, the neighbor next door to come over for coffee. Don’t get me wrong, we love our neighborhood and as I walk Arnie daily we have met many of our neighbors, stopped to chat, and even share banana nut bread or a plant or a gift. Several neighbors have come over for wine and I am sure many more will in the years to come. Our house will always have an open door and we love company. I have been in a neighbor’s house once and they have been in ours. That is sort of a lost opportunity of the last year if you ask me (although Mel Robbins’ podcast affirmed this to be true in many of our lives).

Well, guess what!!! Our neighbor’s house is for sale. So I am looking for a new neighbor, one who is an animal lover, one who will treasure my owl house in the front yard, come over for coffee and wine, perhaps even take a walk on occasion, and come over to borrow flour or sugar or eggs and also one where I can stop in just to say hi for coffee or wine. I don’t want to think the days of yesteryear are gone, in fact, I want to vow that there is a resurgence in neighborly care and concern.

I think fondly of the childhood tv show, Mr. Rogers. “ It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Won’t you please, please won’t you be my neighbor.”