Just about the time I moved to the South to live with my husband (boyfriend at the time), he got new next door neighbors. We rarely saw the woman who lived there, but the man was out in his yard from daybreak to sunset. His lawn was meticulous (although later he would tell us it was full of moss and eventually he killed it and replanted it), every leaf was mulched within minutes of hitting the ground, and the flower beds were weed-free. Ours was not. In fact, weeds didn’t just grow, they flourished in our yard. Only you couldn’t see them for the fallen leaves. Under there somewhere was a lawn, but we only saw it after a big storm had blown our leaves into the neighbor’s yard (which he’d quickly run out and mulch to smithereens). This neighbor was the strong silent type and I’d said hello or smiled when I went out to get the mail, but he’d mostly just nod back and we never had any small talk at all. Because I make friend easily, we figured he hated us (turns out he’s shy). But even dislike from a neighbor we didn’t know really wasn’t motivation enough to get us out of the house and raking the leaves.

Fast forward almost a year later. We were getting married and the ceremony and reception was in our back yard. Believe it or not, this WAS motivation to clean it up and make it look nice. The neighbor probably saw us out there working and thought we were putting the house up for sale or something. We knew all our other neighbors and had invited them all to the wedding, but these two on our right were strangers. Still…as the day approached, it seemed mean to have everyone from our street at our wedding and exclude the ones who could look out their back window and see the festivities, so mere days before the wedding, I stuck an invitation into their mailbox, mentioning that I hadn’t invited them earlier because I wasn’t sure if they’d want to go to a stranger’s wedding. They showed up with bells on. Okay…not bells, but bearing food for the potluck and a smile for everyone.

Herb and Lucille, our neighbors who we thought couldn’t stand us because of our yard, have become two of our closest friends. We miss them dearly, but call them often now that we’ve moved. And because we still own our other house and have closed it for the winter, Herb’s dream has finally come true…he’s mulching our leaves every day.

Save your mistaken first impressions for your writing. Life is too short to live them.