The text from our agent came on a Sunday afternoon. The open house at our Portland place had just wrapped, and four different neighbors had stopped by to talk to him. Not about the house. About our privacy fence.
I read it twice.
These were neighbors we’d shared six years with. Backyard pool parties. Game nights filled with laughter. Block gatherings where we brought the wine and stayed until past our bedtime. We knew their kids. They knew our dogs.
Two years ago, we put up a privacy fence.
And in the two years since, no one said a word to us about it.
When our agent asked each of them, individually, if they’d ever raised it with us directly, every one of them said the same thing. No. We liked them too much. We didn’t want it to be a thing.
Part of me gets it. Completely.
The version of me from ten years ago would have done the exact same thing. Smiled at the BBQ. Swallowed the discomfort. Convinced myself it wasn’t worth the friction. I know that move. I’ve performed it more times than I can count.
But another part of me reads that and feels something closer to grief. Because going to someone’s real estate agent instead of going to them. What does that conversation actually accomplish, beyond making sure the discomfort never has to be felt directly?
So much of what we call kindness is actually conflict avoidance dressed up in a nicer outfit. So much of not wanting to make it a thing is just protecting ourselves from the awkwardness of being honest.
So I sent a text to my old neighbors. I told them I’d heard about the fence. I said I wished they’d come to me.
I opened the door, instead of turning away from it.
This is the season I’m in. I’m done pretending the hard things aren’t there. Done crafting excuses in my head about why someone did what they did. Done choosing the comfortable lie over the uncomfortable truth that wants to be spoken between two people who actually care about each other.
If I’m going to err, I want to err toward the real. Toward the awkward. Toward the conversation that might land badly but at least gets to land somewhere.
Give me an awkward conversation over death by small talk any day.
Welcome to my 2026 doorway.
It might be uncomfortable. Someone might not text back. Someone might. Either way, I’m not going to be the one who lets silence quietly harden into a stone wall.
The fence was never the real issue. The silence around it was.
