One of the most bizarre things that’s ever happened to me, happened this week. To start the story, though, I have to go back to two weeks ago, to a completely harmless and kind neighbor experience, which indirectly and completely unrelatedly led to a hostile and threatening experience with another neighbor.

To back up and set the stage, I live in a relatively small apartment building. There are 7 floors, 4 apartments on each floor, except floor 1, which has two apartments, and 7, which has one penthouse unit. For anyone doing the math, that means a total of 23 apartments, a handful of which are vacant. So we’re all pretty familiar with who lives in the building, and especially on our floor.

Disregard the following paragraph if you just want to get on with the story.

[Apropos of almost nothing, but because this is my little corner of the internet and I can say what I want and be as long-winded as I desire, I offer a little background to whoever is not reading this drivel on a regular basis. The building I live in was once a hotel. Built in 1907 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it has been beautifully restored and completely overhauled, with special appurtenances that give a hearty nod to the building’s past, including built-in shelves, exposed original brick accent walls, pressed tin ceiling tiles in the bathrooms, and huge windows facing an interior atrium. The building is LEED Gold Certified, and my utility bills would make most people cry, they’re so low. So would my rent, which is still super high for most places, but for a downtown Portland apartment that’s almost 1000 square feet, on the top floor, doesn’t face any street, and is heart-stoppingly quiet at night, it makes sense. If you made it this far, the only part of this paragraph that relates to the story I’m about to tell has to do with the building’s layout. Apartments -1 and -2 on each floor are one-bedrooms that Park Avenue, and only have windows on the front of the building. Apartments -3 and -4 on each floor have a central view into the building’s beautiful, open-to-the-sky atrium. -3 is a two-bedroom, and -4 is a one-bedroom. They face each other across a bank of four windows in each apartment, which is the relevant part: I live in 63 and the neighbor in question lives in 64. There is a lot of light, and it’s beautiful.]

RIGHT. So if you made it through that BS or skipped it altogether, here’s the rest of the story. Two weekends ago my apartment hosted a “game night” in its lovely shared community space. I went, and we played Cards Against Humanity and watched the younger residents play video games. We had a couple of beers and a few laughs, and it was a really nice time. One of my neighbors, Kalli, who lives on the 3rd floor, also has a dog with one eye (if you’re new here, so does mine), so we’ve had sort of a nice connection since I moved in. I like her very much, and she’s always really sweet to me. She actually has very little to do with this story, but stick with me.

At the game night, Kalli offered me a dog coat for my pup that she’d been gifted, but that was way too big for her tiny Pomeranian fluffball. I gladly took the coat and thanked her, and when game night was over, I took it home and tried it on 20-lb Eden. It was a little big, but it worked, and was a super nice puffy coat with fleece interior.

A few days later, we had a serious cold snap for Portland (15 degrees F!), so I decided to put the coat on Eden to take her out. As I went to fix her harness over the coat, I noticed a big lump in the zip pocket on the back. The kind person who had gifted Kalli the coat had also included a roll of poop bags AND the receipt for the coat, in case it didn’t fit. I immediately wanted to return the coat to Kalli so she could get the right size for her Pom, but I didn’t have her contact info and I couldn’t remember her apartment number.

That evening, I got ready to go to my usual haunt and do some writing. I left my apartment and got off the elevator on the first floor, and remembered that Kalli’s contact information was on a list on a bulletin board right across from the elevator doors. About 8 apartments, including me, have voluntarily put their info there, just so that people can feel a little safer and know their neighbors. Also, we have someone to call in case we get locked out. I got off the elevator and stood there for a moment, putting Kalli’s number into my phone and texting her that there was a receipt so she could return the coat and get the right size for her tiny dog. I probably stood there for a whole minute, texting.

As I turned the corner to head toward the front door, I heard someone get up from the seating area in the lobby. Startled, because I hadn’t heard them sitting there, I said “ Hi!”. I recognized a woman from my floor, the daughter of the mother-daughter duo that live across the atrium from me. She stared directly at me and said loudly, “STOP FOLLOWING ME!” At that moment her mother walked in the front door, and as I tried lamely to explain that I was just putting a phone number from the list into my phone, she grabbed her mother and steered her toward the elevator, saying “WE KNOW WHY YOU’RE HERE.”

To which I responded, not totally under control: “WHAT THE FUCK?”

To which the mother yelled: “LANGUAGE!”, as they entered the elevator. Which made me laugh.

For the record, I’ve had exactly two encounters with these women prior to the elevator incident. First, I left a bottle of wine and a note outside each of my neighbors’ doors when I moved in, thanking them for their patience during my move, and giving them my name and phone number. Then, about two weeks after I moved in, the daughter knocked on my door and asked to borrow my phone because she’d left her cell phone somewhere and needed to let her mom know that. I happily obliged, though she was cagey and weird, and didn’t want to come in or talk to me at all. She and her mother have never said hello to me when I see them in the hall, though I always greet them. They scurry past me and mutter under their breath when they see me. They have also said nasty things to my friend Jobe, who lives on the 5th floor, and I found out recently that they are the reason one of the neighbors on my floor, Zoe, moved out.

The day after the elevator incident, a message was posted on an 8 x 10 sheet of paper on the window closest to both our kitchens, a window I can clearly see across the atrium, and a window no other apartment shares. I haven’t figured out a way to put pictures here in these posts that actually stay, so I won’t even try. I post them, but they seem to disappear. In any case the note said (in all caps, exactly as shown):

STOP FOLLOWING AND HARASSING MY FAMILY. WE KNOW WHY YOU’RE HERE. LEGAL CONSEQUENCES IF YOU DON’T. ALSO, I DON’T APPRECIATE YOU CURSING AT ME OR MY MOTHER. YOU DON’T KNOW ME OR MY FAMILY. STOP APPROACHING US. YOU MAKE US UNCOMFORTABLE!!!YOU ARE CONSIDERED A THREAT NOW. STAY AWAY FROM US!!!

Imagine my surprise. Again.

I own the cursing part. But it really wasn’t AT them. I was asking the universe to tell me what the fuck was going on. Also, I live in the building, so I’m bound to run into them occasionally. Seriously, WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK.

So, anyway, I did what any sane woman would do when threatened with legal action. I texted my landlord with a picture of the message, and I called the police and documented the encounter with very kind officer Labasan, who gave me a case number and explained my options. He told me that incidents like this have escalated since the pandemic, and for the first time I realized I might not be at fault, that these women might truly be mentally unstable.

So, that’s where I’m at. I can’t recall ever in my life having a totally unsolicited, unprovoked encounter with anyone that rivals this. I know that some people don’t like me much. That’s becoming more evident as I become more true to myself. I’m getting more OK with that as I grow out of my former chronic people-pleaser phase of life, but this is a whole new ball of worms. Ball of fish. Kettle of worms. Whatever.

The truly triggering thing about this encounter, for me, is the fact that it’s exactly like my engagements with my father. It’s the knowledge that they will never understand the truth. No amount of reasoning will work, because they’ve chosen to embrace their own narrative, regardless of its extreme divergence from reality. They will never see me for the kindhearted, generous, struggling-with-her-weight-and-her-decisions, new-to-Portland-not-new-to-life, marginally boozy, mild-mannered archaeologist, and runner, and BMXer, and dog mom, and friend, that I am. The women on my floor will never understand that they have branded a kind and slightly depressed person as a safety violation. They will never, ever, not see me as a threat now that they’ve labeled me one. Similarly, my dad will never see my successes as anything but (a) his doing, or (b) failures. In both situations, everything I do will be under scrutiny, and misinterpreted.

What if I were actually suicidal? I have not been that far off for the best part of three years, and by that I mean that the idea has crossed my mind on occasion. Don’t come at me, Ghost, with your bullshit about how that means I need an immediate wellness check by the fire department. This shit is nearly universal these days. Does the word suicide “trigger” you? Does that offend you? Does that make you call social services on my behalf? It better not, because I’m of a generation that fights that shit to the end. That’s probably, most likely, not how I’m gonna go out. At least until I’m like, 80 or so, assuming I make it to that age. And if we don’t admit that we feel that way sometimes, even if we won’t act on it, aren’t we being the opposite of honest about our feelings? And isn’t that kind of honesty the thing we should strive for? Isn’t that kind of honesty a beam of light to those who are struggling with the same feelings?

What I’m getting at is this: would these women’s treatment of someone else in a truly suicidal mindset push that person over the edge? Does that make these “ladies” a threat to the entire building? Apparently they’ve never heard the adage “You never know what’s going on with someone else.”

What follows here sounds totally dumb, like I’m an alien who’s new to a human body, but I’ve sworn to myself to be transparent here, so this is the truth and the whole truth and nothing but the goddamned truth. After I saw the message on the window, I had a very physical reaction. My hands shook. My blood pressure felt like it was through the roof. I paced. I debated. I was supposed to be working, but I couldn’t focus on anything work-related. As with most of my emotional reactions, I’m still learning to regulate them. A long history of being told what to feel, (and more specifically, what NOT to feel, and self-medicating to suppress it all) has left me experiencing any strong emotion like it’s a new one. This lasted for the better part of the day.

So I told my therapist all about the encounter, and I went to the gym with my friend for our personal training session, and I got through it to the other side, because all of those appointments are with wonderful, supportive, generous, genuine women, who fucking have my back every day. I showed up at my personal training session with the above symptoms, shaking and upset, and by the time our sesh was over, I’d laughed myself calm and worked my muscles to the breaking point.

Physical exercise and personal connection are 100 percent ALWAYS the solutions for me.

Yesterday I started to leave my apartment, but heard the door to the elevator area shut, and couldn’t. Just couldn’t. I started to shake. I tried to calm myself, but I really can’t handle another confrontation. So I stayed inside. I was afraid to take my bags of recycling to the basement.

The truth is, if these women are mentally unstable, I’m afraid that I’m making them afraid. That’s awful, if it’s true. Unfair to me, and completely stupid, but their reality is their reality, and if I’m the cause of their fear, then that is incredibly sad and wrong.

My guys, my dearest friends, the sweetest, most un-dramatic men in my life, helped me climb off the ledge with the simplest texts. I told them what happened, and sent them the picture of the window message.

My friend S replied: “Oh, man, I would love to experience that. I don’t have a lot of natural gifts, but one of them is I can out-crazy crazy to an almost unbelievable degree. It comes in handy when you’re in jail. “

Bless him. For the record, I don’t think he’s ever spent a substantive time in jail. 🙂

My ex’s response was even better:

“Clearly, they figured out why you are there. Might want to reconsider your plan for landing the mothership in their kitchen.”

Exactly.

I wish both of those men were here, stat. I love them both so much.

OK. Now that’s done. I’m over it, for the time being. For a few days I shut all my blinds tightly because the landlord told me they’ve recorded people in the past. Then I realized that I have nothing to hide, and I spent about 44 of my 53 years in places with 300+ sunshine days per year, so my body really needs the light, regardless of my love of rainy days. So I open every window blind completely, every day. Do I potentially live in a fishbowl? Yup. If you don’t want to see my saggy 53-year-old tits, then don’t peek into my apartment.

Just kidding. I don’t walk around naked. They’ve probably seen me in *gasp* a bra and leggings, though.

Cheers, Topaz and mom Esther. Y’all can fuck right off, and I wish you the best of lives at the same time. These things are not mutually exclusive. I hope you heal. I hope you snap out of your paranoia and find the help you need to do that.