Yearning Simpler Neighbourhoods

Sometimes I feel people have forgotten what it’s like to be in a community. 

We barely know our neighbours, and sometimes we are more distrustful than open to those who are new around us. 

It is an age of CCTVs and high rises filled with people who barely see each other, who barely know who lives on either side of them. It is an age where bringing over food to the neighbours is a rare occurrence. It is an age where communities become bigger, but where every other person is a stranger. 

I remember the days where going out with the neighbourhood kids to play in the evenings was a norm. We would go out and play under the scorching sun until our skin was brown. We would run around the neighbourhood and learn to roller skate, or play baseball, or trek around the neighbourhood pretending we were explorers. Our mothers would chat over the fences, or bring food over to the other neighbours. There were always people out in the evenings, always a game of badminton going on. 

Neighbourhoods change, and times change as well. 

At times I yearn for a simpler time, where things seemed a lot more wholesome and the people who lived beside you were a lot more than just the faces of strangers.