One time my fiancee and I went out of town for the weekend and when we came back there was a small piece of cardboard wedged into our front door. On it was a note written in thick (but not industrial thickness) black Sharpie marker.

It said, “Close your drapes, people. Neighbors don’t want to look into your fish bowl. Show offs. Stupid.”

This was a couple Sundays ago.

Allow me to indulge you in my subsequent progression of emotions…

Stage 1 – Rage. HOW DARE YOU INVALIDATE ME! Stupid? YOU’RE STUPID!!

Stage 2 – Fear. Are we totally missing something here? Is this like when I didn’t know what “riding shotgun” meant in 8th grade? Are we “those” neighbors? Are our deepest fears of not being fit for society actually being realized? NO ONE LIKES US! Is this embarrassment ever going to go away?

Stage 3 – Confusion. Who the heck are you? REVEAL YOURSELF!

Stage 4 – Suspicion. Is this a cryptic way of foreshadowing a burglary? (Maybe I need to hire Willem Dafoe from The Boondock Saints.)

Stage 5 – Vengeance. I must think of a clever way to retaliate. That way I can “get them back” and write about it on The Sea Log to impress a bunch of people – many of whom I’ve never even met!

Stage 6 – Remittal. Do nothing. Let it go. Instead focus on all the things I actually should be focusing on.

Stage 7 – Acceptance. Write about the experience so I can actually put these feelings in their proper place.

When Lindsay and I first told people about “the note” we were looking for validation (of us) and invalidation (of them). A hard line in the sand. As in… we are right and they are (wrong, crazy, overly sensitive, etc.). Good guys over here. Bad guys over there. Black and white. See the difference?

16 days later and the dust has settled. It doesn’t bother us much anymore. Yes, ideally it would’ve never happened. But the same could be said for Home Alone 3 and a bunch of other stuff. That’s just life.

Here’s what’s left…

We left our drapes open and that made an anonymous neighbor feel mean feelings. I don’t want to excuse that. Maybe this person has some really bad feelings associated with being able to see into a neighbor’s house. Maybe I walked around in my cut-off jean shorts with the lights on a few too many times. Maybe – to this person – closing the drapes is basic moral conduct and for anyone to do otherwise is a deliberate act of cruelty. We can’t know. And we definitely can’t invalidate our neighbor for feeling the way they do.

But…

But what about the note? Was the goal to convince us to close our drapes (or buy new ones)? I’m not sure it was. The name-calling at the end made it feel like insulting us was the true motive. What if they found a way to make the same suggestion without making us feel like inferior human beings? What if they considered the possibility that their new neighbors had no idea they were bothering them so much AND would actually prefer not to infuriate them?

(They probably would have been a lot more effective.)

Dangerous things happen when you only consider your own feelings.

People assume other people mean the worst.

Then those other people retaliate.

Then wars start. (Sounds like an exaggeration but honestly how else would it happen?)

In order to attack another you need to believe they deliberately acted against you in the first place.

Let this story remind you that’s almost never the case.

Love thy neighbor, anyway.