Fearless

This afternoon I went to the most amazing place in the entire world, St. Pete Beach. I got to visit with my seagull friends, lay in the sand, and listen to the soothing sounds of the waves. I definitely haven’t had the time to relax recently. I mean, I’m a sandwich artist at Subway, I have 5 classes to worry about, I’m in a sorority, and an athletic organization on campus. Anyways, I’m a busy bee and today I took a couple hours to enjoy some “me time,” well “Steph Galvin and Me” time. I’ve realized so many things over the course of about a week and a half. I can definitely say this is the most difficult part of my life, so far anyways. It’s not in a bad way, it’s just one of those mountains I have to climb over, but recently I’ve kind of felt like an ostrich trying to fly over a 30 foot fence… For those of you who don’t know, ostrich don’t fly, so impossible is pretty much what I’m trying to get at. Anyways, over the past couple of days I have realized what some of the most important things in life are; family, friends, and happiness. I’m not really going to get into those exactly, but I want to get into how I realized that those items are important.

I worry a lot, I’ve been a worry wart my entire life.  In elementary school I refused to faint into someone’s arms during a play for fear I’d look stupid and he’d drop me; middle school, I threw up on test days; and today, I just worry about school work, friends, family and my future. Here is what I have realized; my biggest fault is worrying about the future. I’ve been so worried about what is going to happen down the road, and not just next week but like weeks, months, even years in the future.

So today is my declaration, I’m telling everyone I’m not going to worry about my future, because where I’m at right now is perfect. Yea, there are some bad days and there are some awesome days, but I’m not going to worry about anything. Today when I was on the beach, with my seagulls, I didn’t have a care in the world; I was content, but not just content, happy. Recently I’ve had two people tell me I need to focus on the present, and you know what, they are exactly right. So I my two wonderful friends that keep me the sane person I am today - you know who you are – thank you. And to all my readers, if you worry like me, try not to. It will be hard, but as I watched the seagulls roam the beach and rest in the sand, they seemed so carefree and their flight seemed effortless and that feeling would totally be worth it. Every once in a while a huge gust of wind would come a long and I would watch them fight against it. But as college students, as humans, we all have those huge wind gusts that may knock us down. But we have to be fearless, like the seagulls, and get right back up again; go on with life and try not to worry about what could happen, and let ourselves be engulfed by the sunlight, let our wings be caught by the breeze and just go with it.

Hope this helps some of you who may be going through some rough times right now. Also, the picturesI added are just 2 of the 101 photos i took at the beach today, 95 of them are of seagulls. Anyways, thanks for reading! 

Sarah Ann Weaver 

The Bird Nest..

This past weekend, I sat outside the house I’ve had all my childhood memories in… I laid down on the concert and looked up at the sky. My mom was sitting in a folding chair, my brother on a stepping stool and my dad on the concrete next to me. My sweet little kitty, Boo, was chasing leaves; Lucy, princess kitty, was walking around aimlessly, and Luke, my dog, was tied around the garage door track. As I looked up at the sky I noticed the trees, the overcast sky, and finally a bird’s nest in the tree looming above me. I thought of home, and how much home means to me. When most people think of a home, they may think of a structure, a house, with a front yard, a doorbell, and mailbox. However, I don’t just think of the physical “home.” My warm bed, the blankets that lay across the couch, and the shoes in the middle of the floor always come to mind, but there is so much more to my home than that. To me my home is my perfect vacation spot… That stress free location where everyone knows my name, where I don’t have to worry about what I look like and just visit with those people I haven’t seen in a while (in my case recently “a while” is at the most 2 weeks). People make my home what it really is to me; going home and feeling loved by friends and family is an irreplaceable feeling.  

Now I’m not saying that you can’t have more than one home… but there is just always that one place that we all feel secure. We can be who we really are, and do the things we want to do. Sometimes I feel like people forget how important it is to be who they really are. As college students, we always have an image that we have put on for everyone we have met, hopefully, we have each been true to ourselves and our image is who we really are… but regardless, when we go home to visit mom and dad, we wear sweat pants, flip flops, and possibly no bra, depending how lazy we really are… guy readers, no bra hopefully… My point? Recently back home, has been my only safe haven. Am I homesick? The simplest answer would be yes. The complicated answer would be so confusing, very few people would understand.

Well as I was looking up at the bird nest that afternoon, I wondered how often baby birds visit home, if they do at all… How much they remember, if they visit their brothers and sisters… Now as my readers you guys are all laughing at me, but this is a very serious thought. I mean, if I were a bird, I’d fly home probably every weekend to get a decent meal and a hang out in a nest, visit my childhood birdy friends. Okay, even though I sound ridiculous, all I’m trying to say is the worst thing you can do is take advantage of being home; because one day you’ll realize it’s the only place you want to be, it’ll be the only people you want to see.    

Keep reading, 

Sarah Ann Weaver

Bad News: A Seagull Story

Yesterday my best friend, Steph Galvin, came home from class to inform me of probably the saddest news I've been hit with in a long time. First she asked me if I had driven down a certain road going to school, I said “nah” and her response was “good, thank god.”

So my mind starts running for 10 seconds before I blurted, “uhm, why?” She shifted in her seat and got the awkward, I need to tell you something, but I don’t’ want you to be upset look on her face. She paused for a second and then said, “There was a dead Seagull in the parking lot”

Gasp! Soooo depressing… She felt awful and continued with, “I was freaking out and I’m just glad you are okay.” I stood frozen, feeling like a little bit of me had died inside. The next few moments Steph continued to explain how she wished I could read her thoughts so I could understand what she was thinking when she saw the poor lifeless seagull. For the next couple of hours she would text me to make sure I was still alive, and warning me to be extra cautious today. Steph jumped to the conclusion that something bad was going to happen to me, and that this dead seagull was an omen. I laugh at the thought of it, but she does have a valid point.

There were a couple things that went through my head after Steph shared this terrible news with me. The first was poor seagull, the second how did this innocent creature die, and the third was actually provoked by a later comment that I will get to momentarily. My first thought is clearly self-explanatory, we all feel bad for creatures that have died unexpectedly, even expectedly. I happen to be a softy when it comes to animals, then again who isn’t? For instance, when my beta fish Apollo died, I was sobbing as I flushed him down the toilet. I mean, I practically killed him myself, which is the sad part. Yup, there is a certain temperature beta fish like their water at, and needless to say, I didn’t have the water at the correct temperature, and the next morning he was floating along the bottom of his little home, completely lifeless. I’m also the kind of person that will convince myself that a dead cat in the road is, in fact, a raccoon or an opossum, when undoubtedly, it’s a cat. My point is you should feel bad for animals when they die.

My second thought still seems to bother me, how do you kill a seagull? They fly. No one should be hunting them, I mean, yea they are annoying to everyone else in the world, but come on. So if it was taking a break from flying and taking a stroll in the middle of the parking lot, shouldn’t you as the driver stop? I mean, people slam on their breaks for squirrels; my dad practically throws my family through the windshield if there is a squirrel in the road. Drivers should be just as cautious about birds. Granted, birds should be in the middle of the road, but give them a break, they fly most of the time. Birds need to relax too. So yea, whoever hit that poor seagull should be paying a little bit more attention.

After Steph had given me the bad news I had to go to my discussion class for accounting, I sat down next to one of my new friends and told him about the dead seagull, his comment afterward – with the intention of making me feel better – was “well I saw a flock of seagulls this morning on the way to class so you should be safe, and there are still plenty more around.” My first thought, but what if those seagulls were that poor dead seagull’s family? Do they know? Are they sad? Depressing I know. My response to him was “but now someone in their family is missing” with one last effort to make me feel better, he smiles and says “it was a rogue seagull.” I laughed, his little comment had worked.

Anyways, I guess it’s just funny the way people look at certain things, obviously to a couple of my close friends it’s a known fact that seagulls are close to my heart (read previous blog to see why). Steph jumps to the conclusion that a part of me is dying, and that I should watch my back. My classmate, the optimist, reassures me that there are plenty more seagulls and that particular seagull was a rogue. And me, well I just don’t like for anything to die, birds, people, cats. Why can’t we just live forever? I always think about how everyone else is effected, who will miss that pet or family member or friend. I just feel like this incident is a great interpretation of how something so inevitable and common as death can be viewed in so many different ways. It triggers different emotions in all of us, mainly sadness in all of us, but we explain it, or cope with it, break it down in different ways to help us or those around us feel better.

These are just my random thoughts on a Saturday afternoon. I’m going to try to post more often, but we will see how that works.

Keep reading J

Thanks!

Sarah Ann Weaver