Today's Events - March 26th 2018

     Today:

I took a bike ride to Center City, Philadelphia to pick up estrodiol and I want to record my thoughts and take away from the day so that some day when I'm fully transitioned and can't remember these times, I can read this and think about how life was.

Let me start by saying, I am lazy and today was a prime example. SO last night my plan was to wake up today (Monday March 26th, 2018) fairly early and get to Center City to pick up my estrodiol. I figured I'd pick it up then maybe ride around for a while and just kinda aimlessly spend the day doing whatever.

And because my plans ALWAYS go perfectly, I woke up at 7am...and felt like crap so I went back to sleep. Then I woke up at 8:30am and felt head achy, so I went back to sleep.

Aaaand at the bright and early time of 1:45pm I decided to get up for the day. I got out of the house about ten minutes later and made the train literally seconds before those guard rails went down. So that was a good break I caught first thing into my day. Then I got to Camden and got off the train, rode my bike to the bridge.

So normally, I get on the bridge and ride across the side where I can see the Camden Riversharks practice...or Rutgers or whoever plays at that baseball field but this time that side was closed for some reason and I had to go on the other side.

     The other side...the other side is a  little scary. It has a metal board looking floor for a bit till you get to solid concrete, which makes me feel like I'm in that Indiana Jones movie where the bridge is falling apart. Oh and did I mention I have a fear of heights? Yeah so I do, sort of.

By sort of I mean that whenever I get high up and can see down, I imagine every possible worst scenario. And because I have a crazy vivid imagination, it's always like super detailed and makes me super nervous. I, of course, thought of what if I hit the rail and flipped over the side or what if that tiny car patrol officer hit me with his little half-car thing and I popped off the bridge...and about 43 other random and crazy scenarios where I end up off the bridge. I have trouble stopping that thought process and tried to just sing and forget about where I was.

     After a terrifying trip across the bridge I got to Market St. and relearned that I HATE just about every GPS app there is. And I try not to use the word hate very much unless it's really deserved...this deserves it. I hate every direction app I've used so far, not one has done well long term without major idiotic issues.

I got rid of the map that my IPhone came with because it was just atrocious from the beginning and tried many map apps, none impressing me. I ended up using google maps  over the other terrible apps and for a while it was better than others at least but recently...over the last maybe 6 months or so it's just been terribler than ever. Yeah, I said terribler. If anyone has a recommendation, please leave a comment because I need a good GPS app.

Okay so I FINALLY fought through the  bad directing and made my way to the Mazzoni Center; for some reason my brain doesn't like to help me remember how to get there even though I've made this same trip like 10 times between December 2017 and now. (Alright, brain...thanks.)

I got my medicine and asked the worker there to send my meds near me and will not have to go there just to get meds from now on. SCORE! And a big thing here wasn't just getting to change the destination of my meds, it was me taking that step of asking.

For some reason, I have trouble asking things like that; speaking up when there's no real reason to fear talking has always been a problem for me. Speaking up today was pretty important to me and a bonus was they're gonna make it easy for me. (insert smile emoji here)

Then I wandered around Center City for a while and made my way back to the bridge, crossed it slower than before because my mind had plenty of time to create more scary imaginative ways to fall off and I got to the riverline.

     Something kinda cool and inspiring happened there.

I got on and was the last person on, so I didn't have a seat; I was standing in between doors holding my bike. Usually, the train stops ONLY when they get to a station but today they decided to quickly stop about 30 seconds after leaving the Camden station.

And I had the fortune of not being ready for that, I fell forward. I wasn't ready and fell hard into a black guy sitting in a seat and he could have been super angry and rude but thankfully he was very polite about it. I apologized profusely and he was more focused on making sure I was okay. I felt bad because my bike hit his knee but he was so cool about it, then another man offered me the seat he had and I sat down insstead of trying to keep my balance every tiem the train jolted.

The man who gave me his seat had a Septa jacket on and I thanked him for the seat, he responded politely then told me he weas suprised the guy I fell on was nice; most people don't care if it's an accident or not, they get really mad in that kinda situation.

He then went on about how peple blame him for every single issue that Septa has, even the most radical or stupid things. He had a genuine attitude toward me and seemed liem one of those people who truly tries to be a nice person in a job where no one thinks about anyone but themselves (I can relate) and he told me a few situations he dealt with today and I told him how I deal with that kinda thing too.

Then, as he was getting off the train, I told him I thank him for doing what he does and he stopped and shook my hand; I really feel like that helped him just to feel a little better even for a moment and that can make life  a tiny bit easier to handle. I know that feeling when humanity gets redeemed just a little tiny bit and what that means to me when it happens, I was really happy to get that chance to make him feel good.

     Sometimes a little thank you or an extra step to be nice can go such a long way for someone. It can be the difference between someone going home and feeling drained or horrible and a person going home thinking, "That was really cool" And that being the thought at the end of a day for someone who gets wrecked by angry customers at their job is a BIG thing to good people.