On a crazy whim a short while ago, I decided to actually get out of my apartment and exercise. The apartment complex has a little square of macadam that is home to a lone basketball hoop, so I laced up my high tops, pumped up an old basketball and dribbled on over to see if my jumper is any better with about a year of rust.
After about 5 minutes, I started getting company. A little boy and his dad came out for a little playtime. A few more kids came and went over the hour I spent out there. We didn’t do much beyond shooting some baskets and fetching each other’s rebounds. Eventually, though, we started up a game of knockout, and by the end of it, I was huffing and puffing (though that’s largely because I get a good workout in about once every other month).
I got more than some good solid cardio, though. I also got to meet some of my neighbors, something I must admit I’ve been quite terrible at in the 10 months I’ve lived here.
I’m what’s known in the medical world as “extremely shy,” and I’ve never really gone out of my way to meet new people. For me, new friendships have always just kind of happened, and rarely have I gone to any big social or neighborhood gathering in which I didn’t already know someone else who was going, too. (The exception to this would be freshman year of college, when that constituted most of my first month at Penn State.)
So getting to meet some friendly folks was definitely an unexpected and pleasant surprise of my workout. I know it’s not much — I didn’t even learn where in the complex they all lived — but at least there now exists a slight chance that on my next walk around the apartments, I’ll actually recognize a face or two.
How do you interact with your neighbors?
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