my neighborhood

[mayalaen]

I grew up in bad neighborhoods that weren’t even that safe during the day and everyone had to have a big scary dog growling at their side just to answer the front door.

Friends from the other side of the city wouldn’t even come to visit us later in the day for fear they’d be there when the sun went down. One woman wouldn’t even come during the day without her husband.

There’s worse neighborhoods out there, of course.

About 10 years ago my mom, dad, and I sold our houses and moved into this neighborhood. It took us a couple years to relax a bit and get used to a safer neighborhood.

I regularly take a walk with my dog at 10pm, and there are other single women, teenagers training for sports by jogging or exercising at the park, and bicyclists who are out at that time too because it’s quiet, cooler (I live in the desert), and just nice!

In the last year and a half people have gotten really ridiculous, and the neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods have gone downhill quickly.

more whining below the cut

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I changed my walk time to 6pm back in February after getting fed up with people in pickup trucks and modified cars and crotch rockets screeching around the neighborhood and narrowly missing us, people screaming at us and following/chasing us, drunks stumbling along and nearly puking on me or falling on me, loose dogs coming after us, and more than one group of people who regularly began smoking crack at the park and using needles to shoot up at the school.

It was a severe and quick change, and we all realize it was coming eventually, but that it was hurried along by world events including people getting pissed about lockdowns.

Last night I was busy and didn’t make it to our walk until 8:30pm. It was fully dark out, but I figured we’d be fine. I hadn’t been out after dark around here in 7 months, but maybe it got better, right?

Wrong.

By the time I got to the park, we had already gotten out of the way of two cars racing down the small street between my neighborhood and the park and had to change our route because of a loose dog.

I got to the park with Roo and she started doing her thing only to have a couple pickup trucks come screeching into the parking lot and start chasing each other around (pickup truck tag anyone?), crashing over medians, taking out a tree, and spraying rocks all over as they went.

I grabbed Roo and I took her up to the community building to make my way around to the other side of the park, but when I got there, another pickup truck was screeching its way through the long rounded driveway for dropoffs.

In the truck were the same guys who screamed some very confusing racial slurs at me and chased me earlier this year. They must have decided it was time to go again.

They were too drunk (again) to follow me quickly as I made my way to a house kitty-corner to the park where a guy was out front working on his car, and once they saw me getting close to the guy, they drove away, nearly hitting the other two trucks who had finished playing tag in the front parking lot and who were coming out onto the main street.

I hurried home, but the whole time we were out I could hear people street racing, vehicles screeching along everywhere, and people screaming and yelling.

I looked spooked by the time I got home and my mom was like hey are you okay?

And yeah it was scary in that I don’t want people to do anything to me, but I was more disappointed and disheartened. For several years we got to enjoy a laid back, safe neighborhood where I was able to walk around at night.

When I walk during the day, it’s hard to find an area where there aren’t any people because this is a really outdoorsy neighborhood, so even though I wear a mask, I’m still worried I’m going to get too close to people, especially with Delta variant so easily transmissible.

I kinda wish I hadn’t experienced my awesome neighborhood for those few years, because now I know what I missed out on growing up and I’m sorely missing 10pm walks in a quiet neighborhood with people who give each other space.