On Monday I hinted that I might write about the movie Promised Land this week. I had a basic outline planned out and was good to go, and then after work Jason called to tell me that our house had been broken into and robbed. This is kind of hard to ignore when I'm writing, so I guess I won't be writing about the movie this week.
Lesson number one: things don't always go according to plan. What's that they always say? "The best-laid plans of mice and men / Go often awry." (From a poem by Robert Burns.) You'd think I would have learned this one by now.
I had a characteristically complicated set of plans that were thwarted by this, my second robbery since moving to Delaware less than 2 years ago. Not to mention the hard-earned, if still slightly shaky, sense of security living in the city not far from infamously drug-ridden streets and neighborhoods.
Oddly enough, I almost feel a little less scared now. More city-hardened. Broken in (ha, ha, get it?). The guy one house down, though, told us he's lived there since 1999 and hasn't known of any break-ins on our block until now. He did say a lady once had her purse snatched on the corner, though, and was screaming for help. He said he and two other guys on the street came out to see what was going on, and one of them chased the guy a couple blocks before catching him and beating him up and bringing the purse back.
Lesson number two: city security. The cops told us "negative" on ground-floor window units and gave us a few other security measures we should put in place. So we're working on that.
In our case, they said, somebody probably was looking for pills or drug money, or both. People walk around pushing on AC units and if there's give, they push it in, fill their pockets and take off out the back door, to turn over the goods for cash or crack a few blocks away.
Lesson number three: we are unbelievably lucky in our family, friends and neighbors.
Talking to our neighbors after the fact, it was clear that people on the block keep an eye out for each other. Call it nosy, but I have had a growing feeling that, when it comes down to it, we all have each other's backs.
When I got off the phone with Jason after work and found out what had happened, I first called my mom to tell her I probably wouldn't make it over for dinner, and why. She said she was sorry to hear it and did I want them to come over. I said I would assess the situation and get back to her. Then I called Katy and told her to come home.
So I went home to find Jason and his brother watching a movie and drinking beer. And Joe stayed until Katy got there and then he left. So there we are waiting for the cops to show up (apparently there have been a lot of shootings in town lately, so they have been busy) and there is a knock on the door, and it's my parents standing there with a crockpot full of stew and some bread. "Want dinner?" they said.
A little later my sister, who was the first person to discover that my parents' house was robbed last September, showed up to give hugs and make jokes. And Jason's parents checked in on us every hour or so, and the morning after.
Family is so important, and ours are the best.
And then I told the girls at work and they said, "Are you suppressing your emotions or are you really this calm?" Since then they have been offering to make plans with us and have been texting periodically at night and in the morning to make sure we are feeling OK. And friends have been checking in and doing the same.
Friends are so important, and ours are the best.
Lesson number four: you never know what people are dealing with behind their eyes. Yesterday I decided to go to work and really dig in, try not to get distracted, act normal. You might never know if you saw any of us that something had happened. Because we don't always have the luxury (or the crutch?) of being able to check out and freak out. We have no clue what kinds of things people deal with on a daily basis. The people driving next to us, making our coffee, delivering our mail, sitting in the next office. The show must go on.
Lesson number five: when my parents' house was broken into almost two years ago, I had the most stuff stolen. I was so angry because I had just come to this new place, and it wasn't treating me very well. It hit me with an earthquake, a hurricane, tornadoes, a break-in, and a manhunt, all within the first 3 weeks of my arrival. I took it so personally.
Jason was the first to discover the robbery on Monday. He just moved in officially a week ago, and he got hit the hardest as far as the value of things lost. I asked him, "Are you ready to move out?" And he said. "Yeah..."
And so was I, two years ago. But in retrospect, how glad am I that I stuck around? I am not one to run away. I am determined -- to a fault -- to overcome. And I have, for the most part. I have kept my job and, in fact, advanced within my company. I still love what I do. I have made a lot of friends and discovered a lot of things I never would have otherwise, and taken advantage of a lot of opportunities. And I met this great guy who moved in and almost immediately got robbed. The literary richness of this story is not lost on me. I only hope that there are as many good things to come in the next two years for him, and for all of us, as there have been for me.
And that no one gets robbed two years from now. There is no curse! We just live in a city.
Lesson number six: this is the kind of thing my parents told me, when I was little, that only happens to people once. I know now that this isn't true, that some people have a lot of bad things happen to them and some people have hardly any. I know from experience it's easy to feel like Job.
But I caught myself thinking that yesterday and scoffed aloud. Not everything is great, and in fact I have been heard to say more than once lately that the world is a pretty rough and unpleasant place a lot of the time. But given what we have to work with, I've got it pretty good. And to compare myself to Job? Well, that guy lost everything. And I'm definitely not trying to jinx it by thinking I'm at that level. I've got a lot to be thankful for.
So I didn't write about Promised Land. But part of what I was going to say about it is that things don't always turn out how we think they will, and life delights in surprising us. And that we don't know people until we sit down and listen to their stories. And that the world is hard, but sometimes all the more beautiful for it.
So maybe I did write about it after all.
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