This is a strange, short rant. But I have to get it off my chest.

Living close to people who seem incapable of closing a door, instead allowing it to bang shut, is a real source of stress. Especially when they come and go every five minutes (what are they doing?). I wonder why they cannot hear it, themselves? Why it doesn’t bug them? I recognise that it isn’t deliberate. It is carelessness, clumsiness, and probably also unconsciously motivated by underlying frustration. I even Googled the subject, only to discover that it is a global problem. There are so many articles and debates about the whys and wherefores of living in the vicinity of habitual door slammers, I was shocked. All over the world, people’s nerves are set on edge as the walls around them rattle and vibrate as, yet again, a door is opened – only to be let go of, rather than closed. It’s the kind of thing that, over time, leads to madness.

I have to be honest, though, I am so sick of where we are currently living I could sit and sob. I feel like there is a cloud of bad juju hanging over the estate. Lots of things are getting me down, but I’m doing my best to contain it and carry on until such time we can move to a new home. It has reached the stage at which the smallest thing feels like the straw that broke the camel’s back. Except that there are a lot of straws and the camel somehow manages to keep going. But that isn’t going to last forever. The camel’s days are numbered. Finding somewhere else to live isn’t going to be easy, financially speaking. In the UK, property rental prices shot through the roof during the pandemic and they haven’t come down. At the age of 66, I don’t want to spend every penny I possess to keep someone else’s roof over my head – whilst being at their mercy, too. They could suddenly decide to sell the place. That’s happened before. I am, sadly, now paying the price for poor past financial decisions. Most 66-year-olds own their own property… but I suppose even that doesn’t protect you from the ways of the outside world.

The house we currently live in is comfortable. The rent is very reasonable. The landlord is great. But, after almost 12 years, the time has come for a new start. We aren’t perfect and we can’t have life completely on our own terms. I understand that. But there is definitely some very, very bad energy here which is tainting everything around it. Even though I bent over backward to keep the peace for a long time (my partner has had less patience than I have), certain boundaries have finally been crossed and there is no going back. Two separate parties have buddied up (because they’re cut from the same disgusting cloth), to wreak havoc and lie through their teeth. And, of course, they watch each other’s backs. Their friendship isn’t a genuine, warm one – it is based on mutual spite and couldn’t-give-a-shitness about anyone else in the neighbourhood. One party doesn’t even know what the other has been saying behind their back. I do. One day, it’ll implode – these things always do. But, in the meantime, they’re happily spreading their darkness like foul-smelling muck on a field.

So, the door slamming isn’t the biggest crime being committed here. It isn’t deliberate or malicious. It just comes on the tail of many, many other completely unreasonable acts, perpetrated by a small number of people who live for and feed off conflict and drama. Individuals who, if they target you, will stop at nothing to make your life miserable. To goad you into a reaction. And then they lie through their teeth to cover their tracks and discredit you. They’re very, very good at it, too, I’ll give them that. And unless you are as crazy and inwardly ugly as they are, you’ll never beat them or win. They’re experts.

The upshot is, I know we’ll be alright because we always are. It’s just that the wheels sometimes move very slowly – but what can you do, apart from have faith and keep going? However, for the first time, I want to witness retribution. I have always shied away from that kind of thinking, believing that it is not my business, but God’s or the Universe’s, where other people’s comeuppance is concerned. However, these past 12 months have caused something to snap within me, and I’m finally done with other people’s BS. And I’m done with people getting away with behaviour that actually warrants a good, hard kicking. But we’re not allowed to do that. The only consolation I have is that the perpetrators are clearly living miserable, unfulfilling lives and will probably still be entrenched in their own mental filth when they grow old and die. Hopefully, with a stake through their cold, dead hearts.