Patterns, patterns, patterns
I wasn’t going to write about this but it’s been annoying me for an entire week now. I can’t ignore it anymore, so here goes.
I have new neighbors. Three generations: a mother (maybe mid 40s), her daughter (early 20s), and her daughter (barely a month old). I will name them Cindy, Mandy, and Jo.
The good
They’re quiet. Jo sleeps most of the day, and when she cries she’s barely audible. Mandy also rests most of the day to recover. Cindy is barely home. Out at 9:30am, back at 10:30pm. In that regard, I couldn’t have chosen better neighbors myself.
They’re also smart. Cindy and Mandy saw right through my landlord’s bullshit. I deliberately avoid mentioning my landlord on this blog because he’s not worth the effort. That’s all I’ll say about him. But I was worried that the ladies would figure it out the hard way. It turns out they knew what they were signing up for. I respect that.
The not-so-good
Mandy is bored out of her mind. It leaks through the one wall we share. I’ve caught her snooping into my house when she’s taking out her trash. So, now I’m spending a lot of energy reestablishing my boundaries.
When they moved in and I introduced myself, I explicitly said that in case of anything, they should ask the landlord. I’m unreliable when it comes to neighbors. I don’t like to be interrupted for any reason, and I don’t interrupt. I live very independently. The “can I borrow some sugar” nonsense doesn’t fly with me. I can tell she might try that soon, so I’ll just need to up my guard.
I don’t know how long it will take her to realize that I’m nothing but a neighbor. I’m not her friend or her sister or her refuge or her savior or anything at all. The fact that I’m home all day doesn’t mean I’m bored. If anything, I’m busy writing things to get food and rent. And even if I wanted company for whatever reason, a neighbor is the last person I’d choose. That’s a line I just don’t cross.
The really, really not so good
This is the part where I start to doubt my intuition when I know I shouldn’t.
Too many things are too familiar.
Like on moving day. Cindy arrived first. She had only a few items, but they were well-chosen, expensive-looking. Then she went to pick up Mandy and Jo. When they arrived, my heart sank.
Jo’s stuff was old, battered. Hand-me-downs of hand-me-downs. She didn’t have a suitcase or anything. All her clothes were wrapped in old bedsheets.
The mattresses stood out to me. Cindy’s mattress was high quality, the expensive kind, king sized. Mandy’s mattress was painfully worn out. It didn’t even have the cover that comes with it, so it was just an exposed, battered, greyish-brown sponge. That hurt, but I put it aside. It was none of my business.
Then I introduced myself to them. Although the conversation was warm and friendly, I got back into my house and one thought stood out: who I am, everything I do, is a crime to them.
Here’s the context. Mandy a young girl with a brand new baby, moving back into her mother’s house. She’s effectively unemployed and won’t be able to work for a while. As far as I can tell, she doesn’t even have a smartphone. That means her options are very, very limited if she was to try and find any kind of remote work.
Cindy is working Sunday to Sunday. Inflation is working overtime, too. Now she’s feeding two more mouths on her income and paying a higher rent than she used to. She’s the single mom of a single mom.
And then I show up. Cindy introduces herself as Mama Mandy. Mandy introduces herself as Mama Jo. I am mama nobody. Strike one.
I say I work from home. I’m looking well. I can afford food and rent on my own. I’m thankful for this every single day. But it’s strike two.
I accumulate more crimes, like being able to cook every day. Or having appliances that beep or hum (they don’t even have an electric kettle, which is pretty much a staple in Kenyan homes). Or being so self-sufficient that it doesn’t even occur to me to go next door for anything. Cumulatively, these are strike three. Every single thing I do could be used in an argument between Cindy and Mandy.
And the absolute worst?
This smacks of neglect and narcissism.
Especially the material things. I know we’re not supposed to put any value on material things, but this time, the signal was too painfully loud to me. It happened with my mother and I, my sister and her daughter.
My mother always wore tailored suits. She had to look good because of her government job. She would get her hair done (before she cut it) and get her nails and brows done too. She would get her teeth cleaned often enough. To look at us side by side, you’d think I lived in a hovel. I wore thrift jeans and tshirts. I kept my hair back in a bun. I wore caps. If I was to buy a brand new shoe, it had to be a sneaker that would last for years.
When my sister died, she left behind bags and bags of beautiful clothes, a lot of them still new. You could open a store with them. Amazing taste she had. But her daughter? She was nearly five years old and still struggling to fit into vests that she wore when she was a newborn. Her shoes were battered. And I came to learn that she was so neglected and abused that she was more stressed at age 5 than I ever was, and at the time I was nearly 30. I don’t write about my sister and niece. I’m not ready yet.
And then here come Cindy and Mandy. Cindy has quality stuff. Her hair is well done. She always looks polished and neat. And Mandy… well. Let’s just say that even from the moment they came to see the house, nothing about the two of them registered as mother and daughter. Even their energy was completely off. I thought they were friends, housemates. I was genuinely shocked when Mandy said Cindy was her mother.
It’s a visible chasm because I’ve lived it, I’ve witnessed it. I hate it.
Then all the other unspoken stuff
Why does a mother have the latest smartphone and the daughter have a basic feature phone? The best thing on Mandy’s phone is the torch. Why does Mandy’s stuff look so battered? Did her mother never visit? If she did, why not give the daughter a boost? Shouldn’t a child come first? I would absolutely not sleep on a deluxe mattress when my child was on a tattered old mouldy one. I could not.
Why is there a functioning TV but it’s always off? Is it because it’s Cindy’s TV and Mandy knows that her mother’s stuff is her mother’s alone? I learned this very early on in my life, too. It was drummed into me. My mother’s things were hers, I must get my own. And even then, I must not get anything better than hers.
Why doesn’t Mandy cook? It’s been a week. We literally share a wall. I barely hear any sounds of pots and pans in the silence we live in. I barely smell anything coming from her side of the house. And it worries me because she’s exclusively breastfeeding. She’s healing from what I can guess is a c-section. If she can’t or won’t cook, why doesn’t she have anyone bring her food? It feels like she’s in jail in there, and she’s more than bored. She’s lonely and depressed. She’s abandoned and neglected.
I cannot and will not intervene
Like I said before, I don’t do neighborly things. And in this situation, I absolutely cannot afford it. I don’t have that much energy to spare. And it’s absolutely not my place. First, I could be wrong. I could’ve misread the entire thing. And, who am I to presume that I could swoop in and make things better? I don’t know these people, they don’t know me. I’d like it to stay that way.
But… Mandy and Cindy are leaking through the walls. I would happily mind my own business. Gladly. But my back is constantly cramping. And I get a wash of resentment every time I put my kettle on for tea. And I tense up every time Mandy opens her door because she’ll pretend to be taking out the trash but wishing she could be in my house. I could put these thoughts out of my mind. But my body won’t let me. If it’s toxic next door, it will register in my body. There’s no off switch.
The best I can do is learn
This situation can only get worse. I’m going to get more and more tired. I’m going to pick up stronger intentions and resentments. I’m going to have to reset my boundaries every day, maybe every hour. Because my door will remain firmly shut to my new neighbors. I don’t carry people’s burdens. Mine are more than enough, thank you. I also don’t make anyone carry mine. But my body will keep absorbing things. I’ll just have to figure out how to stay standing.
Because Jo is going to start fussing soon. And Mandy will start getting frustrated. And Cindy is going to get angry —she’s working long hours, she won’t want her sleep interrupted by an infant. And I’m going to be on the other side of the wall, drained by my work, drained by my neighbors.
I don’t know why I have to witness this kind of situation all over again. I’m only just making sense of my experience in my mother’s care. I haven’t even started to unpack all the baggage around my late sister and my niece. What are my neighbors here to teach me? I don’t know. But it’s hurting already. I hope that’s the pain that comes with healing, not with breaking. Only time will tell.
