She was a smart girl. Until she fell in love.

Last night I was jolted out of my zzz's by the sound of chairs being thrown down the stairs. How did I know that it was chairs and not say a table or body (though I would not have been surprised by either)? The throw down was followed by my neighbour shouting "I fucking hate these chairs in my hallway!" The subsequent crash was followed by much banging on the other neighbours' door and the shouting that ensued should not be repeated due to its graphic nature. All of this happened at a lovely 2am. Luckily for me I was not on my usual 6am wake up call but I still lay awake in bed for an hour gripped with fear and anger about the following things:

1. Crackheads banging on my door (anger).
2. Crackheads breaking down my door (fear).
3. Crackheads arguing in the middle of the night (anger).
4. Crackheads in general (fear).

I grew up in Cranbrook, BC so I should be used to crackheads by now but the reason I fled Cranbrook the second I graduated from high school was to get as far away as I could from that scene. Thanks to Facebook I cannot escape the reality of my upbringing and get to experience a new type of fear: well known drug addicts reproducing [children]. Bring on the next generation.

But I digress. This is not the first time that I have been woken up by my conscientious and caring neighbours, who, interestingly enough, I have never seen or met before. They generally like to save their episodes for the middle of the night, the later the better. He usually storms off and she shouts after him "You are coming home right? RIGHT? ANSWER ME! ARE YOU COMING HOME?" I could almost feel sorry for her if she wasn't continually interrupting my drama free sleep. After he has made his way out of the house, making as much noise as possible, she proceeds to moan and cry and rock in place (the last one I do not know for sure but this is what I would imagine to be happening).

I realize I may sound cruel and callous but it is a well known fact that these people are hard core drug users. They are clearly both stuck in some kind of horrific,destructive and circular relationship that makes them dependent on the other so neither can ever leave. Hey, there may even be love involved. We always hurt the ones we love the most right? I know first hand how intense love can be and when combined with something as harmful as substance abuse I would have said, back in the day, that I couldn't even imagine what kind of life that must be. Now I am experiencing it first hand and it is not pretty.

I gave my notice today and will be moving out in a month.