Neighborly

Growing up, I remember long summer days spent outside with all the neighbor kids. A typical day would look something like this: get up and eat breakfast, head outside to see who wanted to play (or go knock on their doors to see if they were ready), head a block over to the local school's baseball field and playground, play until we all inevitably got in an argument, head home for lunch and do it all over again in the afternoon. We didn't have to schedule play dates - step outside your front door and your standing play date awaited you. We knew our neighbors, my mother helped organize neighborhood block parties and if we were to drive through my old neighborhood today, I would be able to name most of the people who used to live there. 

Fast forward to today (we don't need to talk about how many years that would be!). My husband and I moved into our house in a quiet, family oriented neighborhood two years ago. We have only met a handful of our neighbors. Thankfully, our neighbors across the street have become our support system - each of us keeping an eye out for each other. Even when going on neighborhood walks, we cordially exchange waves and nods, but typically we don't engage in any type of conversation. For such a nice neighborhood, we still don't feel like we know many people. 

A few months ago, Aaron came up with the idea about having a cook-out this summer and inviting our neighbors. Kind of like a block party but without the need to actually block off the street. We picked a date, made up flyers, and walked around the neighborhood as a family and personally invited our neighbors to come on over! By just taking that simple step, we were finally able to meet some more people on our block. 

We also decided to extend the invitation to our neighbors on our online neighborhood community on Nextdoor.com. Which was a little risky, but for the most part was a great idea. I feel like in this digital, overly cautious age, it is easy to simply keep to ourselves and take the safe route. It's true- we live in scary times, we see it on the news everyday. But, sometimes you have to take risks to see change. 

So, on Memorial Day, we pitched tents, set out tables and chairs, fired up the grill and welcomed friends, family, neighbors, and new friends to our home and had a great time! Our daughter made new friends with kids in our neighborhood. We connected with people who we never would have met otherwise and everyone seemed to welcome this new open-door attitude. I received a lot of comments about how great it was to have everyone get together - and that they would love to see more of this in the neighborhood. And all it took was taking action on an idea. 

My husband is a kind, generous, and thoughtful person. I am so glad he came up with this idea and that we saw it all the way through. I am looking forward to more meaningful connections with the people we choose to live around. I hope that Ella will one day be able to spend long summer days outside with her neighborhood friends, forming lifelong childhood memories like I did.