I have fallen behind in this Ultimate Blog Challenge. I’m behind in my Daisy Yellow Index Card a Day Challenge. I have fallen behind in life. I feel as if I’m always playing catch up. I’m up burning the middle of the night oil. I’ve been up since 2 am and unable to get back to sleep. I awoke with all the anger and frustration that I took to bed with me. It’s a wonder that I got to sleep at all. I could feel the anger and frustration building across the tightness of my chest. I decided that it’s best to get out of bed. I feel just helpless in bed.

It’s amazingly cool for a July night. Life has certainly not been kind this year. First, Sheba’s ear hematoma in December. She had to have it drained 3 times. Poor baby! I won’t go into it again. There were sleepless nights like this, sitting up with her, taking her out in the middle of the night. She recovered from her ear thing and we had a few good months, going to the park. But we lost her middle of May.  Another difficult night and morning with her before our final goodbye.

It’s not quite 2 months since she’s left. I’ve not had peace in mourning the loss. Trouble resume fast enough with the woman next door. It’s at least 12 years of on and off harassment. It’s too much to go into. I’m still singing my old song. It is exhausting. The police liason officer finally came yesterday about the June 11 incident. I was overcome with emotions. I’m not sure how clear I came across. But I did show him the video of June 26th without explanation. Halfway through, he asked if she has a mental health issue.

I did express that I think she’s a psychopath/narcissist, that she’s more trouble now that she has enlisted ‘Al’ to help her. I am not hopeful at all that the police will have any effect. We all are sure that when she presents her side, it will be quite different. But how many ways can she explain her actions? Her outburst and intrusion into our yard was caught by my camera as is her ripping out our signs. It is not logical to plant a row of spruce trees in a 6 inch space beyond your driveway and right against our raised bed on our property. I would not call that cooperation but malice.  And why and how can she prevent us from mulching our cedar trees on our own yard? But somehow she has done that thru bullying and belligerence. She will not allow me to talk. She talks over me. And I have to yell and shout but I will not succeed. I will become angry by all this. I have.

It is not just one thing. It is about everything. She is very definite and sure I can not cross the what she consider is her line. If my bean crosses the fence, she will snip it off. But she says the bylaw gives her right to come 2 feet into my yard. She does not offer me this same courtesy. She has crossed my line many times – into my yard to spray and weed. She has added on top of my fence (it is a fence I paid for and 2 inches within my property)  without permission. All this sounds very petty. It is. When you examine it, it really is about nothing. And yet here I am, bothered and bewildered , tapping out my angst in the middle of the night about all this f’ing nothingness. It can and does drive me mad.  It is 6 in the morning by this time.

I am really disgusted that I’m spending so much energy and getting so emotional  about this malicious nothing of life. And yet, when I try to walk away, she won’t let me. She would say or whisper something to insinute, to malign to cause trouble. She is very good at this and I have fallen into her trap many times. She tells me that my neighbours hate my yard and that they leave their keys with her. That’s a suggestion that they are on side with her and against me. This, of course, is heresay, made up . But lying is not against the law. She whispers her pretend sympathy and support that I should not have to do the yard work. I’m retired and should be enjoying myself. She’s insinuating my partner is doing nothing, getting a free ride, taking advantage of me.

When I tried to disengage, she interferes with my work, removing my landscape rocks, tossing them at me. When I put down my hoe and try to walk away, she calls out that I can’t keep her out. She can tear down anything I put up. This was last fall. When I try to walk across the street to maybe get Al to talk to her, she calls out, ‘Al is not home’. That was the first time I called the police for help. Enough is enough.

Last fall, we each had our separate talks with the police liason officer. We were both not to trespass, stay on our side of our imaginery wall to the sky. Spring comes. Things haven’t changed. She hasn’t changed. We cannot do anything on our property next to her driveway without her noticing and interfering. And here I am, in my space, still tapping my angst. I like to think I have changed, made some progress. I like to think I have some insight. This is not about me. This is not just about property issues. This is about harassment. Before, she did not talk about ‘it’s her property’. She talked about doing ‘our work’ scraping the natural mulch and weeding around our cedars though we don’t want her to.

Way back when she first moved in, she was intent on shovelling all her snow onto my yard, even after I asked her not to. I have problems with moisture getting into the basement with the spring thaw. It fell on deaf ears. She even threw the snow over the back fence, had her handy man clear the snow off her roof and dump it onto my backyard.

Now my cedars have grown, with no or little gaps between them. We have placed a raised bed where they ended. They make a natural fence line. With that and her big driveway between us, there are clear boundaries. Given that there are 6 inches between the fence line and her driveway, is that enough room to plant spruce trees there, right beside our raised bed. And to ask the Weedman spray all along the edge is just nasty. We grow vegetables in the bed.

I’m unloading a lot of crap of 12 years onto the page. I have to. Otherwise all this shit will kill me. It is especially frustrating and lethal because it is all about nothing.  After talking with the police liason officer, I felt the frustration over the years all the more. I felt more helpless and powerless. In the end, I felt: ‘what the hell was all this?’ She will spin her tale. She knows and plays the game so well. She is quite skill in it.

I know that it is wise for me to let this crap go. It is NOT about me. I’m not the one who is trespassing on her property. I’m not the one weeding and spraying on her side. I’m not the one who is doing anything to her, except report her to the police. I am standing up for myself. I have to stay true to myself – to who I am. I have to look after myself. And if there is a time to swear, it is now. F*^#k!! The police did say it would be ok for me to douse her with water if she is trespassing on my property and causing trouble. But no punching. But if anyone had pulled out his signs like she did, he would punch them. (VBLOL)

** I’ve written quite a mouthful. It must be equivalent to 3 posts. I might sound crazed but  hope I make sense. I consider myself all caught up with the Ultimate Blog Challenge.