I Didn’t Expect it to Hit Me This Hard…

I knew my neighbors were moving.

This wasn’t some sudden surprise. We had been talking about it for months. I knew it was happening.

What I didn’t know was how much it was going to hurt.

Maybe that’s because I kept telling myself they were just neighbors. Maybe because when people move, you’re supposed to be happy for them. And I am happy for them. They started a new chapter. They get to build a life somewhere new.

But that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve spent the last few days looking across the parking lot at an empty apartment and feeling like something important is missing.

When I first moved into my apartment, I kept my blinds closed.

Not occasionally. Not when the sun was too bright.

All the time.

I couldn’t look out my patio door because every time I did, my eyes went straight to a particular window. A window from the apartment I lived in when I was thirteen years old. A window from the apartment where I was sitting when I found out Chad had died.

People talk about grief like it’s something that gets smaller with time. Maybe that’s true. But sometimes grief just changes shape. Sometimes it waits quietly until something reminds you it’s still there.

When I moved back to this area, all I could see was that memory. I didn’t see a parking lot. I didn’t see neighbors. I didn’t see kids playing.

I saw a thirteen-year-old girl whose world had just shattered. And if I’m being completely honest, I wasn’t doing great back then.

I was trying to survive my divorce. Trying to figure out who I was outside of a marriage that had consumed years of my life. Trying to raise my kids. Trying to keep writing. Trying to pretend I had everything under control when the truth was that most days I felt like I was holding everything together with duct tape and pure stubbornness.

I don’t think many people realized how badly I was spiraling.

Then they moved in. And suddenly the apartment across the parking lot wasn’t quiet anymore.

At first it was little things. Hearing people outside. Hearing laughter. Seeing kids running around. Normal things. Except they didn’t feel normal to me. They felt alive.

Their kids played outside the way kids should play outside. They ran around. They laughed. They rode bikes. They made noise. There was always something happening.

And then there was the laughter.

If you’ve ever met people whose laughter instantly makes you smile, you’ll understand.

Both of them have that laugh. The kind that carries across a parking lot. The kind where even if you don’t know what they’re laughing about, you want to laugh too.

Somehow, over time, conversations started happening. Then more conversations. Then patio nights.

Then Phase 10. So much Phase 10. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the phrase “What phase am I on?” more times in my life than I did during those games. Every single game. Every single time. And somehow it never stopped being funny.

Then there was “boyfriend not boyfriend.” Which, for reasons that still make me laugh, eventually became Perry.

Yes. Perry. As in Perry the Platypus.

That’s what friendship is sometimes. A bunch of inside jokes that make absolutely no sense to anyone else.

The thing is, I don’t think they ever realized what they were doing for me.

I don’t think they realized that every conversation, every game night, every random moment standing outside talking about absolutely nothing was slowly changing what that view meant.

The apartment across the parking lot stopped being connected to one of the worst moments of my life.

It became connected to some really good ones.

When I opened my blinds, I wasn’t immediately seeing grief anymore. I was seeing laughter. I was seeing friendship. I was seeing memories that belonged to the present instead of the past.

For three years, they helped me reclaim something without ever knowing they were doing it. And now they’re gone. Not across town. Not somewhere nearby. Pennsylvania.

Far enough away that random patio nights aren’t a thing anymore. Far enough away that if I want to see them, it has to be planned. Far enough away that life looks completely different now.

The apartment is empty. The parking lot is quiet.

Their blinds are closed.

And I keep catching myself looking over there anyway.

Part of me still expects to hear laughter. Part of me still expects to see the kids outside. Part of me still expects someone to text and tell us to come outside.

I know eventually this won’t hurt so much.

I know eventually another family will move in. New memories will happen. Life will keep moving forward the way it always does.

But right now? I’m sad. And I think that’s okay. Because sometimes people come into your life at exactly the moment you need them.

Not because they have all the answers. Not because they save you. But because they help carry some of the weight without even realizing it. They become part of your healing. Part of your story. Part of the reason you survive a difficult chapter.

And when they leave, you realize just how much they meant.

So if somehow they ever read this, I hope they know.

Thank you.

For the laughter. For the Phase 10 games. For Perry the Platypus. For all the random conversations that lasted way longer than they should have. For helping me create new memories in a place that used to hold so much pain.

And for reminding me that sometimes healing doesn’t come from grand gestures.

Sometimes it comes from good neighbors, loud laughter, and a patio chair across the parking lot.