Left behind....

In the past week, Dog has discovered many buried treasures in my backyard. I don't view them as such, to me they are simply icky, but I can respect that he is a dog and is not grossed out by old dirty socks the way I am. This morning I was enjoying breakfast on the deck when Dog came loping out from the side of the house proudly carrying his latest find. After a few minutes I went down to play with him and try to identify what exactly he found. Turns out he found a diaper. An old, used, disgusing, rolled-up diaper. In my yard. Ew. As I'm carrying it to the garbage sandwiched between two pieces of somewhat less icky garbage to avoid touching it (still disgusted by the fact that I had to touch it to get it out of his mouth), I am cursing aloud the crazy people who owned this house before me and wondering who does that?! I mean, who throws a used diaper into the backyard?!

I've found myself asking that question a lot lately (the 'who does that?' one, not the one about the diaper), primarily about the people who lived here and about Redneck. When Redneck and I first moved in to this place back in May we found various drugs and related items (these people had a 1-year old son and the wife was 8 months pregnant). But it goes beyond that to little things i'm finding that have been done half-assed, as my dad would say. Everything from nailing broken kitchen drawers shut, to a hole punched in the wall of the nursery, to silicone being used to seal absolutely everything. At first, Redneck and I were both asking "who does that?" about these people (seemed reasonable, given the amount of bizzare stuff they did to this place). Then, when I ended it with Redneck, I found myself asking it about him. Who puts some one else through that much crap? I sorted out all his belongings and put them in the garage, and changed the lock on the house. In return, he used the closet door I was storing in the garage as a ramp to get his motorcycle into his truck, punched holes on the inside of the closet door, and (my personal favorite of WTF moments) unscrewed and took all the lightbulbs from the garage. WHO DOES THAT?!?!?

So I guess my point in all of this isn't just "who does that", but who sticks around and lets it happen? I'm really not being all depressed and whatnot, just wondering how I let myself get so sucked in that I put up with all of it for 2+ years. I am slowly putting my life back together, with the help of great friends and family (and Cat and Dog). I decided this morning, while disposing of the utterly ucky diaper, that I was going to try to be more like the people who lived here before, metaphorically only, and attempt to leave the crap behind...literally in their case, figuratively in mine.