I am so fucking burnt out. I am so fucking drained. This is such fucking bullshit. It’s been almost five years and I am still haunted by what he did.
All my boyfriend and I wanted to do tonight was decorate our fucking Christmas tree. That’s it. And I made the stupid mistake of pulling out a storage box from the back of the closet thinking “this has the decorations I’ve been looking for” but no. It wasn’t. All the stupid Christmas decorations I was looking for were in the other boxes already out in the living room, open or emptied covering the floor.
Why did I keep this stupid box? What the fuck is wrong with me???
But I opened it and BOOM flash backs. All the fucking decorations, Christmas ornaments, all that shit I had with him. Even cute little Christmas tree ornaments my mom and grandma had gotten me back then were in that box and it was like I was all of a sudden back in that living room.
Right back to him and I in that living room, decorating a skinny bald tree because he didn’t want to pay “over price” for a healthy tree. Probably because that would dip too much into his alcohol and cocaine addiction, but here we were. Decorating this malnourished Charlie Brown tree, with all these over priced ornaments that I had bought with my poor excuse for a pay check. It was hideous. Every time the ceiling fan turned on, half the needles fell off. I was sweeping the needles up every day, trying to live in the denial of the fact that this poor tree was a metaphor of my life. And I continued to live blindly.
I remember laying under this terrible tree, looking up at it through the sickly branches, losing myself in the beauty of the lights and the sparkly ornaments I hung all by myself because he decided to work late that night or to spend his nights at a bar. It was magical and peaceful and I loved my poor little tree. While it was up, while I was sweeping away more of it’s needles, he’d always say he was sorry, he should’ve just gotten me a real tree. I’d take a step back from it (because I was scared if I spoke more needles would fall off) and tell him it was fine, I loved my tree. And that was the truth. I did love it. I felt sorry for it and wanted to make it as comfortable as possible for it’s last days here on earth, as if I was trying to make up for this poor tree ending up in such a terrible and hostile home.
But now, we don’t get sickly trees. My boyfriend and I got hunting for a good, healthy one. One that when you look at it you think “I bet they had a hard time cutting that fucker down” kind of tree. And I love those the most. The only time my boyfriend tells me “no” when we’re tree shopping is when I fall in love with one that’s 10 feet tall, and while I may not act like it in the tree lot, his response is completely justified. I love every damn tree we’ve ever brought home.
I threw everything in that storage box away tonight. All of. All of the ornaments, all of the decorations, anything that put me back in that living room went straight into the trash. And when I say I threw it away, I mean I THREW that shit. My boyfriend didn’t even ask. It’s like he can see it on my face now when I get a flash back. He doesn’t say the words, but it’s like he encourages these tiny outbursts of anger towards inanimate objects. He doesn’t make me talk about it, he knows when I’m ready I will.
I have decided to tell him later about the flashbacks. Tonight we’re going to decorate our most beautiful, healthy tree and then lay under it and watch the lights and ornaments sparkle and enjoy another Christmas together.
Panic Attack Paints 