o4) In Soviet Russia

A Christmas Tree in March.
It mocked me.  I swear it.  My new roommate--a friend I've had since the days of the cult, as equally fucked as I due to the crazy-ex who ran the psuedo-religious sect--has had it up since his wife left him around Christmas.  Standing over ten feet tall, and too wide around to reach the middle of it by shoving my arm in, he hasn't been able to remove it on his own.  As a result, the five cats his wife left him with have used it as a marking post, as well as the 80 pound dog she abandoned here as well.

It bugged the fuck out of me. 

There are a lot of things in this new setting that bother me.  The neighbor next door who has five families in a three bedroom house.  The fact that they have a child under two who was running up and down the street under her father's watchful eye with a handgun (a pistol, of all things--the sort that stores an extra bullet in the chamber, so even if the clip is out, it could still be loaded), even going so far as to just laugh as she put the end of it in her own mouth.  Or the people behind us, who live on a small plot of land with five chickens, a goat, a few kids, and two dogs.  But the Christmas tree was something that I could handle.  A symbol, for everything that's been bothering me.  A towering goliath that, if I could conquer, would mean I could handle more than a typical man.

A tree, twice my height.  Literally.

Piss soaked.  Chewed on.  Dry.  Forgotten.  Dead.

Falling apart.

It was like the relationship I had just gotten out of; beautiful when it was in season, and having lasted too long to remain a good thing.  And the challenge was like all of my life.  Being told it's impossible.  Being told I'm too small.  It was the monster in the room, a hazard waiting to go up in flames.  A reminder of things that should have been happy but never would be again.  In the past week since I've broken up with my ex, I've remained numb to almost everything, removed, like my Father always taught me.  I've stamped away the emotions until nothing is left but panic attacks that fade quickly under a strict grip and a sudden fear of food.  The feelings I hide manifesting in strange obsessions--such as the Christmas Tree.  As if it were truly so symbolic.  It made me insane.  It made me think too much. 

So I decided to kill it.

It took some struggle.  And much scratching of branches, some leg work, and a lot of god damned will.  But I took it down by myself.  Dragged it outside.  Dismantled the base.  Removed the star.  Then, in a fit of victory, I kicked it.  Not once, not twice, but multiple times, stomping on it like the ghosts it seemed to represent, allowing the rage that has been building for so long flow out.  How dare my ex use all the things I told him in confidence against me?  How dare he say that everything wrong in my life, I brought on myself.  How dare I let him hurt me like this?  How dare I be so stupid to let myself feel anything at all.  How dare that fucking tree infest so much of my mind that it seemed to mock me by scratching me whenever I walked into the living room, getting chewed on, acting like some sort of dangerous monument to all the shit I've been struggling with in my mind?

Of course, this tantrum didn't go unnoticed by the neighbors. 

Nor did my outburst of, "Impossible?  HA!  I'm Russian!  All Russians must know how to chop a tree, because in Soviet Russia, TREE CHOPS YOU!"

On a good note, the little toddler with the gun was quickly rushed away from where she was trying to play on our front lawn, and told strictly to "stay away from the crazy woman's home".

You take what you can get, I guess.