Life Love and the Journey to Happiness

Disclaimer: This is serious and in my brain and reflective on reality, my emotions are exposed so please do not read if you don't want to think about heavy things. Yesterday I learned that someone I've known my entire life is dying. Well, technically we're all dying but when a doctor delivers the news that it will ultimately happen sooner than later, how do you handle that? I was shocked when I heard it and angry at the same time. It's one of those life's not fair kind of things. What would you do if you learned that your life was coming to an end sooner than you thought. If living ment fighting for each day and not necessarily enjoying all of your days, would you stay in the game or would you just accept your fate. I think we all like to think we would fight for as long as possible in an unselfish way to hang on for the people who care about us and who we love but at what cost? I've been really pondering a few things over the last day and then when I finally stopped thinking about it, I saw this episode of Private Practice http://66stage.com/tvplaymegavideo.php?url=7YSE4B9R In this episode, a young woman learns she will die of a degenerative disesse. At first, she leaves her husband and runs away trying to cause as little pain as possible to the one she loves the most, he was torn up. I won't say any more in light of plot lines, but it is a good episode to watch. The theme that came out of it was that everyone should get to live her whole life, even in the face of a fatal disease. It's inspiring and timely. It brought me back to the thoughts I was having yesterday and made me reflect on life. I feel like my adult life is still just begining, I too want to own a house and someday have kids, I want success in my career and I want to see the world's natural beauty as much as possible. What if I were faced with news of a genetic disease looming? What would I do? These are not Sunday morning questions and maybe they are unnecessary but, I would like to think that I would fight. Like to make that decision now in case it ever comes down to that, if the decision is made in good health, I hope it would be harder to take back if something were to happen. I can't help but htink about the possibility of genetic disease, since my grandmother died of the same cause of her sister I can't help but feel my faith is sealed. I know there is a ginetic test but like the woman in the episode, I've never have the courage to ask for it becasue one answer would be thrilling but the other devistating. Also, I'm not sure it's a yes or no kind of test more of a genetic dispositon that is effected by lifestyle. I guess the best thing is to take life as it comes and jump in head first. Appriciate everything and don't look back. Here's to hoping my person in life disproves the doctors and gets to live the life she deserves.

Neighbors

Once again it has been awhile since I’ve been on here and once again I’m traveling. I guess trains and airports bring out the blogger in me, or this is where I have the most time. So this first entry is mostly a vent bout the new neighbors. As you may remember, I introduced you to the neighbors when I moved into my apartment just over a year ago. A lot has changed in the past year. For awhile the building was substantially below capacity with 3 empty apartments. These three have since been filled and I think it’s time to introduce the new tenants. First in was a single woman in her mid to late 20’s. She rides a bike but other than that does not leave much sign of her existence. She joined in a few BBQ’s this summer and is quite nice. She’s recently finished her degree in architecture and works in the field but other than that I know little about her. She’s quiet and reasonable social, a good neighbor. She lives 2 floors above us. Next in are our next door neighbors; Dennis, his wife, their two kids and for awhile a female friend who had apparently recently buried her father and two mangy dogs. So, first impression, they seam nice enough but look a bit ghetto and have loud children. They have lived next door for about four months , maybe a bit more. They are terrible neighbors. The kids scream and cry a lot more than seems age appropriate, the youngest is often wearing only a diaper when they open the door and it is not warm here and the dogs are long haired and often wander the building with their owner in tow ohne leash. The kids do not go to bed when kids should but rather pound on the floors and scream keeping up the other neighbors. I’ve never even officially met the wife but no one uses their key so the door bell is constantly ringing which sets off the dogs and sometimes the kids. Both parents are unemployed and home all day everyday. We live across the street from a park, they have 2 kids and 2 dogs so one would assume they would go to said park but I’m not even sure they know what a park is because they only leave the house to walk the dogs or go grocery shopping. Additionally they are noisy and do not realize it is none of their business if Patrick owns a bike but does not ride it or borrows his mom’s Mercedes when his care is broken. On top of all this they recruited friends for the last open apartment. Which brings me to our most recent addition…the Upstairs neighbors. Living directly above us, these people knocked on our door to ask if we would mind if they moved in at 8:00pm. Patrick granted permission, 8:00pm is fine and it was really nice of them to ask. We had to ask them to stop banging and moving furniture at midnight and even then, they continued to make a considerable amount of noise until 1:00am. This is not okay. So we didn’t get off to a good start. The word on the street was that our new neighbors would be a single mother of 2. Let’s try a family of 5, in a 2 bedroom apartment! There’s one boy who is somewhere around 17, another who looks about 13, one who is about 7 and a newborn baby girl plus a dog. A mother who wears way too much make-up and a mysterious father who I’ve seen at the grocery store but never met in the apartment. If our next door neighbors are terrible the upstairs neighbors are the neighbors from Hell! Like their friends they are always home and it seems also unemployed, the kids run through the stairs and hang out next door all the time – more doorbell ringing and dog barking! I’m not even sure if these children go to school because I hear them all the time. It honestly sounded like they were bowling with children one day last week! Inside they are noisy but outside they are messy with bicycles strewn about sometimes in front of the door and stolen grocery store carts proudly displayed in the “yard” – I use this term loosely because we have a driveway sized cement yard. They are dirty and produce a lot of trash and refuse to pay the woman who cleans the hallways monthly who is actually one of our nice neighbors. I often find one or two of the children in the hallway any time I open our door. This morning it was the one who is about 13 wearing a crewneck, no pants and mismatched socks and carrying 2 baby bottles. These last two sets of neighbors are of the breed who should not be able to procreate. They’ve also made me resent the German social system which pays financial rewards for children and allows people to sustain families on social support while unemployed. If welfare is everything that is wrong with America because of its potential for abuses, then kinder geld is everything that is wrong with Germany because it can also be abused. Paying people to have children seems like a good way to encourage population but I think it may just encourage those at the bottom of the food chain to reproduce in order to maintain an unemployed life style. I would love to find some studies on the income and level of education of people with children since kindergeld and before.