Alex and I were both off work yesterday, so I texted him to invite him to lunch. He then was silent for nearly an hour. The longer he was silent, the more worried I got. My mental health professional said that I feel alienated from my family and I kept thinking about that and thinking that clearly Alex didn’t want to go to lunch with me, so rather than waiting even longer for an answer, I just sent him the money I would’ve spent on his lunch and texted him to let him know. He immediately responded to thank me for it, which just made my worry worse.
So, rather than taking Alex to lunch, I went out to find a good picture for the new blog theme. I got some pictures of the turnaround up by the Pearl where the river taxis, well, turn around. I got some pictures of the Brewery Bridge, which is the bridge that used to connect the two towers of the Lone Star Brewery and which now crosses the San Antonio River just north of the museum (which is in the old Lone Star Brewery building), and I got some pictures of the Augusta Street Bridge, which crosses the river just west of the Southwest School of Art, which was originally the Ursuline Academy.
I spent less time on the River Walk than I wanted to because I thought my backup battery was dead so I only got down to Houston Street, did a Pokemon Go raid on the Houston Street Bridge, then crossed the river and walked back up to the Pearl.
When Alex came home we talked about what had happened and he said that he was stuck in traffic for most of that time and that he just happened to have gotten my text saying that I’d sent him the money just as he got parked. And, well, it was lunchtime and traffic is a nightmare at lunchtime, particularly if you’re going as far across the city as he was at the time.
And I do mean that it’s a nightmare. Back 23 years ago, in the year that San Antonio hit the 1,000,000 mark in population, Thomas was in the hospital. I visited him every day on my lunch two hours and no, I didn’t actually get two hours of lunch every day. I took an hour of paid time off every day so that I could get to the hospital and not have to turn around and head back immediately. That was 500,000 people ago. Our streets aren’t keeping pace with the growing population.
Things were way better after Alex and I talked, but I was just too stressed out and tired to post last night. When I realized that I’d missed it, I decided that I was allowed to miss a day and I don’t have to feel like I failed myself just because I broke my streak.
I guess, in a way, yesterday was also a good mental health day. I was feeling really good about my new writing habit and then I missed a day, but I was able to tell myself that it was okay to miss a day and I really believed it. And I still do believe it.
By the way, after I fooled around with the pictures, I ended up with one I really liked of the Brewery Bridge and one I really liked of the Augusta Street Bridge and none I really liked of the turnaround. I may have to actually take the river taxi to get a shot of the turnaround that I like. And that will be okay, too.
I’ll probably share the pictures with my fan once I get a good selection. Alex likes my Brewery Bridge photo better than the Augusta Street Bridge photo. I prefer the Augusta Street Bridge photo. I at least want a good photo of the turnaround and to see if I can get a good photo of the Arsenal Street Bridge (unfortunately the river taxi doesn’t run that far south). I may even try for the Johnson Street Bridge or the Hays Street Bridge (which is a pedestrian bridge that goes over Hays Street).
So, in honor of both a bad and a good mental health day, today’s Gratuitous Amazon Link is a great book about both good and bad mental health Furiously Happy, by Jenny Lawson.