It’s Saturday morning. I wake up, feeling heavier than ever. I’ve been feeling like this for a while now. That heaviness has been stuck with me ever since I came back to the US. San Antonio is not my city, and America is not my land, either. But, today I’m forcing myself to do something a little bit different. I’m going on an Artist Date.
I arrive at the Pearl around 1 PM. It used to be a brewery here at San Antonio but closed years ago, then people decided to turn it into a culinary and cultural destination, with retail, dining, green spaces, and Farmer’s Market on the weekend. I’ve been here a billion times now, so honestly, I don’t even know what I’m expecting today. I go to Lick Honest Ice Cream, my all-time-favorite ice cream place in San Antonio, and get myself two scoops of Coffee and Cream ice cream, and take a walk to Pearl’s park, which is a greensward in the middle of the Pearl.
The weather is excellent today. It’s a little bit chilly, but still incredibly sunny outside, makes you want to lay down and close your eyes in the sun for hours. I get to the park, sit down on the grass, put on my headphones and begin eating my icecream. The Farmer’s Market closes at 1 PM, so everybody is packing up to go home. They all look very happy and satisfied, both the sellers and the buyers. Everybody seems to be having a great weekend. Everybody but me, who’s sitting here, in the least stressful place on earth, looking at the little kid holding a giant watermelon, eating ice cream in such perfect weather, yet I’m still so…sad. I’m still missing something that I can’t put a name on it. I put the ice cream down, lay down to look at the sky. It’s so sunny, yet the sky is still so blue. I look at the clouds, try to imagine what shape they are, but give up after just a few minutes. I feel stupid. This isn’t me. I’m not the type of girl who lays on the grass, looks up at the sky and dreams. I’m the realistic type, is all I can say.
So, there I am, laying on the grass, looking at the sky, and not knowing what to do next. Suddenly, my phone shuffles to one of my favorite songs of all time, “Dream” by Priscilla Ahn. I close my eyes to listen to the song, let the sun warms me up. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I find tear-drops slowly rolling down my cheeks. I’m crying.
I’m terrified. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. All I can feel are waves of sadness that keep hitting me, making it impossible to stop crying. So I let it be. I lay there, with my eyes closed, cry for almost an hour. I don’t care about who’s looking at me and probably think that I’m crazy. I’m tired of pretending like I’m fine when I’m not. I just let it all out. When I’m too tired to cry anymore, or my tears are all dried out, I sit up, take out my journal and write this all down.
I basically didn’t do anything on this Artist Date. I just lay there, look at the sky and then cry for an hour. Yet, after that, I feel so relieved and the first time in forever, I start feeling like myself again.
yourfavouritewendee's 