Guilt

OK, so I wrote about how happy I am that DD has found a friend finally. It's been a long time. Her best friend in Junior and Senior Kindergarten was a boy who we still see. His mother babysat the kids for me when I was working. When they were promoted to Grade 1, the teacher recommended they be put in different classes because DD had a tendency to distract the boy (K). So she went all the way through Grade 1 without really making a new friend. She is the type that needs one best friend. When I talked with the Grade 1 teacher, she would tell me that DD played with other kids, etc. and didn't seem concerned about her social development, but I was. She never asked to have anyone over on the weekends and had trouble coming up with anyone to invite to her birthday party.

So now she has a friend, just at the same time I have decided that I can't stand to live surrounded by these idiots anymore.

I still want the house fixed up, but every time DH talks about when I want to list the house, I feel a horrible pang. All the words are lies "Oh, we'll still see her on weekends" and "We'll write all the time". It's crap. You do that for a couple weeks in the beginning and then forget. She doesn't make friends easily. And she'd be the new kid. And, depending on where we move, she'll be from *our city*. In high school, we all knew that girls from here were skanks.

We'd have to find a house like this, only somewhere else. I like the size, that each kid has a good-sized room. I like the size of the backyard. I like the flow of the main floor. I like being within walking distance of DD's school, a grocery store, the library. The ex-sitter, who I should just start calling 'my friend', is close and trustworthy and can help with the kids when I need her.

See, now I'm finding reasons to stay. But the drug-addled idiot still lives next door. It will always be something with him, until he dies. I entertained myself for a while by dreaming up stuff I would do to him after we had moved. I planned on dumping disgusting things on his front porch or putting nails under the tires of his car, so that when he pulled out, all 4 tires would get holes in them. The fun bit would be that he wouldn't suspect me, because I'd have moved. Of course, the truth is that I can't hold on to anger like that. To *actually* stay angry enough to make special trips to torment someone is beyond me.

So. We will fix up the house. DH says if we're staying, he wants to replace the shed with something sturdy and plastic instead of the wooden one we have. Gah.