#ayearfromthen

I was looking through my snapchat memories today and realized a year ago today was such a weird time for me. I never really got to process my feelings or really look at the situation, I just thought the usual, ,“the only way through this is through and I’m gonna make it through this situation”, like I do in every tough time I encounter, so I figured what better way to cope than to write? I’ve been told it’s life changing so why not give it a try?

Well, here we go.

First, I should give a little bit of a background: I had moved into a new house probably a year before this incident, and the house wasn’t in the greatest of areas, and my first neighbor was addicted to meth, but when she moved out, we got this really amazing neighbor. His dog became best friends with our dogs, we were around the same age, and we had become decently close after seeing we had common interests. He was the best neighbor I’ve ever had so far, so naturally, it was a sad time when he moved out. We were surprised that the next neighbors were also around our age, and we seemed to have a lot of the same interests as well. I even shared the same first name with the other girl who was now my neighbor. We hung out for a few months, played some video games together here and there, and we seemed to get pretty close like we had with the last neighbors.

Now here’s where things start turning.

My man and I were pretty ride or die motorcycle riders (another story for another time), and my man enjoys trading motorcycles for other motorcycles. Earlier that year we had bought a 2008 Harley-Davidson Superglide and we wanted more of a touring model, so Brody goes to look for a touring bike to trade the superglide for. He found a Harley-Davidson Ultra Classic to trade straight across, but we had to drive to Oklahoma City for it, which luckily is only a few hours from where we lived. 

The next day, we pack up our bike to leave and ask our cool, friendly neighbors to watch our house for a few hours while we were gone. They had agreed and promised if anything happens to our house, they would let us know. Everything was good to go and we were on our way.

A few hours into the ride to Oklahoma and we ran out of gas and had to push the motorcycle on the side of the road. I had called for some assistance but they didn’t come for about 30 minutes of us pushing this bike. A little bump in the road but we weren’t gonna let that ruin our day.

We gassed up and got back on the road and finally made it to the little bike shop we were buying the Ultra from. Brody had asked to do a test ride just to make sure everything was running up to par like it was advertised. He starts the bike and within seconds, the engine starts smoking and when he goes to ride it, it rides like absolute shit. 

We ended up deciding that getting the Ultra wouldn’t be smart, let alone might not make it back home, but again, we weren’t going to let that ruin our day. We decided that at least while we’re here, to enjoy some good local food for dinner. We went to this cute pizza place and had some great pizza and salad and got ready for our trip back home.

About an hour into the ride home and it had started to rain and get extremely cold. We tried to stop at a few places for some “hot hands” to keep warm but ended up not being able to find anything, which in the long run, slowed us down a bit.

Finally, at around 9 o’clock that night, we had pulled into our driveway, soaking wet, freezing cold, and extremely uncomfortable. Now, normally when our dogs hear the bike pull in, they get excited and start to bark, which is still muffled through the walls of our home. Well, tonight was different. The barks were clear as day, and the second the first bark hit my ears, my heart dropped. I just knew something was wrong.

I hopped off the bike as fast as I could, and sure enough, our back door was cracked open, but it didn’t make sense how the barks were still SO clear. I ran through the door and up into the kitchen to find the kitchen air conditioner ripped out of the window, which my dogs kennels are right underneath the window, so there’s where the clear as day barks were coming from.

I go to check on my dogs, all startled, but no physical damages, then ran to check the rest of my house to find it had been ransacked through. Luckily, we had security cameras, though the idiots who broke in tried to take the wires out of the DVR, it still recorded everything and we had our culprit right there: our own next door neighbor. 

He stole a few thousand dollars worth of material items, then pretended like he would help us find the person who broke in. All while already owing me money from a previous loan, out of the good of my heart. 

This was the last time I tried to make friends. A year ago, I stopped putting effort into new friendships. A year ago, I really lost faith in humanity. A year ago, the me I was, was broken. I just couldn’t understand how time and time again, I can give people the world, and they’ll still turn around and take the universe too.

I love and hate this day. It marks such a terrible feeling, but it marks such a huge era of change for me. I’ve grown SO much this past year and at this point in my life, I’m just excited to see what this journey has in store for me.

Thanks for listening,

Pixie.