Day 58 - the last Monday of the month

Today is the 2nd day of the 9th week, the 27th day of the 2nd month, the 58th day of 2023

Quote of the day:
"But the tigers come at night 

With their voices soft as thunder 

As they tear your hopes apart 

And they turn your dreams to shame"

~ I Dreamed a Dream, from Les Misérables
(Songwriters: Alain Albert Boublil / Claude Michel Schonberg / Herbert Kretzmer / Jean Marc Natel)

Because I am getting quiet -- I can feel it.  

Turning away, turning inward, shutting down.  It is the "speak only when spoken to" syndrome -- the resolution I make that I will not call or write or hail in IM until the object of my affections or the one I wish to be in communication with speaks to me.  It is the triumph of the tiger that whispers in my ear:  "'they are only tolerating you, not wanting you.  Your questions are intrusions, they are tired of them and of you.  They just don't know how to tell you to bug off without hurting your feelings.'"    I doubt myself.   I doubt the connections that I have made.  I doubt whether I should even continue trying to communicate.  

And this tiger shows up the same time every year.   

Oh it surfaces now and then at other times, for a day or a week perhaps, but this tiger flourishes in the end of the winter and the beginning of spring. Spring.  So many poems and songs and essays have been written about this time of year - all about joy and renewal.  I never saw it.  This is the toughest time of year for me, when depression hits, when relationships go into downward spirals, when health problems surface.  The third quarter in school was always the one I got punished for -- the grades always fell off.   The spring semester in college was never as good as the fall semester.  Spring cleaning?  have I ever mentioned just how much I hate housework?  There was only one time in my life when I embraced my inner housewife and that was long long ago, during a time when I was so unlike myself that Susie Homemaker is almost a distinct personality. Relationships?  A long history of break-ups and endings and loss.  Reinforces the tiger:  Makes me wonder how many of those relationships were really what I thought they were in the first place -- or was it just some cock-eyed optimism and cheeriness that made me see more there then was really present.   Or am I just really really good at pushing people away during this time?  My first separation happened formally on April 1st -- how appropriate is that? - but the problems that caused the legal action were in the end of February, beginning of March.  It was the spring when I entered into that disastrous relationship in Alaska.  It was the spring when I took the steps that ended my marriage to my second husband.  

I never quite understand what triggers the cone of silence - if I knew, I would avoid the tripwire.  It is no accident that I started every one of my blogs and/or journals in the spring as I try to force myself into a better frame of mind