Healing In The City: How I Got Through A Very Emotional Meeting in San Francisco (with photos)

I ate most of it and carried around my juice until I finished it. 

Anxiety was sky high.  At first, I was complaining that the parade just had to land on the day I needed to be at this meeting, but then, I began to see it as a gift.  As early as 6:00 am, Giants fans from all over began to line the streets as the police put up barricades to set off the path for the parade that would come 5 hours later. The energy all around me was so positive. Had it been an ordinary day, the dark, misty, drizzly streets of San Francisco might have felt lonely in that area of town, but instead, it was lined with people of all ages and backgrounds, dressed in their sports gear, smiling, and in a great mood.

People were excited and pumped. They, too, had gotten up extraordinarily early, and I imagined that they were experiencing similar symptoms as me, but they were interpreting it as excitement.  The symptoms of anxiety and excitement are very close. 

My SO and I decided to walk around. I acknowledged that the presence of the parade preparation and the gathering of thousands of people truly was a gift. I imagined absorbing and becoming part of all of the positive energy around me and releasing the negative energy to far, far away. It seemed to help. We chit chatted with some families, got really close to the fence and thought about what a good view we would have had if the parade had been our true destination that morning.

We took photos. This is of the clock tower at AT&T Park with the Champions banner on it.

Here is some of the crowd and the television news station vans that were showing up.

More crowds lining the streets as the sun began to come up.

They brought in lunch. Other than that, they offered tons of snacks and beverages to keep us going through the day and into the night. I haven’t had “Goldfish” crackers probably since I was a little girl. Perhaps that’s why I was so drawn to them for comfort. I self-soothed through taste. Since we didn’t have a formal dinner, another bag became part of my evening snacking, too. Something about crunching on them, tasting the salt, and the cute packaging all comforted me, even if just a little bit. (Sometimes it really is the “little things,” isn’t it?)

The meeting carried on and on and on.   Although I was incredibly relieved to find out I would NOT have to talk about details of past abuse, it was still intense and stressful. On breaks, my SO and I would use the free wifi to distract with an episode of Seinfeld to help reduce stress and get us to laugh a bit.  This really helped.