#MicroblogMondays: Neighbourly reminder

(This #MM is actually coming on a Tuesday, which is when my writing inspiration finally hit...!)  

One of dh's cousins is moving (to another suburb) -- and the neighbours on the street they're leaving threw them a big farewell party on someone's driveway last weekend, complete with a big banner stretched across the garage. His wife posted some photos from the party on her social media accounts.  

They moved into this house and neighbourhood a few years ago when it was a newly built subdivision, and I imagine everyone moved in at more or less the same time. All the couples in the photos -- about 20 people total -- look to be about the same age (40s/early 50s), and no doubt they all have kids who grew up playing together and hanging out together. 

I looked at the photos and just kept thinking about how very different it was when dh & I moved. Needless to say, there were no big, fond farewell parties for us.  The longtime neighbours on the one side of us -- including their daughter, Little Girl Next Door (LGND), who was born six months after I lost Katie, and whom we watched grow up -- did make a point of coming over to say goodbye as the moving van was being loaded, and to tell us what good neighbours we'd been and wish us well. (I even got a big hug from the wife.)  We'd never been "hang out at each others' houses/drinks together on the porch" kind of neighbours, but we would pick up mail for each other and chat with each other outside, and buy raffle tickets and Girl Guide cookies from LGND -- stuff like that. 

On the other hand, the neighbours on the other side, who'd been around almost as long as we had, were clearly offended that we were moving (I suspect they may have realized that THEY were one of the reasons we wanted to leave...!) and pointedly avoided us after the "for sale" sign went up...! 

These were the only neighbours we really knew on the street.  We'd known one or two other couples we'd exchange pleasantries with regularly, but they had moved by then themselves. 

The entire 26 years we lived there -- and certainly the 18 after we lost Katie -- I watched these and other families in the neighbourhood outside with their kids, chatting easily with each other. Dh chatted with some of them more often than I did -- after all, he was outside more often, mowing the grass, shovelling snow, etc. I tried exchanging small talk with some of the women, especially when we first moved there -- but it was pretty awkward. They would chat with each other animatedly about their kids, their schools, their sports teams, etc. -- and I would have nothing to contribute to the conversation. 

Of course it got even more awkward after I lost the baby I had been visibly pregnant with.... And I couldn't help but think how different things might have been, had Katie been here. 

(Might have been. Maybe not. But certainly more likely.)  

I sometimes joke that I flunked Suburbia 101 -- and sometimes I don't think I was too far off the mark.  

I wasn't going to write about this -- but those damned photos keep popping up at the top of my Instagram feed every time I opened it over the past two days, reminding me of a world and a lifestyle and a "club" that I never got to be a part of. I'm betting that if I had "liked" or commented on them when I first saw them, they would have disappeared from my feed. It was like they were just waiting for me to do it. ("Hey! Over here! Remember us??")  

But I just couldn't do it.  (And after a while, when the photos kept popping up to haunt me, I was damned if I was going to do it, lol.)

(No offense to dh's cousin, his wife and their family, who I actually quite like...!) 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.