Hiding behind pride

    In today's world people are so wrapped up in thier own life, no one notices the little clues of people trying to reach out. They take the cover picture to heart, and assume they know everything.

    We hide behind pride. Keep the truth locked behind doors, and burry our problems within us beneath surface level. So the people around us can what, assume everything's ok? There is nothing wrong with someone needing help. This society has made it as though someone should be considered weak for needing help. 

    I've said it before people need people, and it's true we all at some point need someone we can trust when we're falling. So don't ever let yourself, or anyone put you down for needing someone to lean on.  

St Augustine 2014

    So for the past week I've been on vacation with the other Watkins as i call them. My aunt Angela, uncle Jerry, and my cousin Gracie.  

     Yes we have been in St. Augustine Florida, in a beach house I might add. We have done so much in just one week, and boy am I tired ha.

    I've played in the ocean riding the waves, dug a nice hole in the sand, and we think a manatee swam by us while we were out playing (though we quickly evacuated the water just to be safe). We went on a local chocolate factory your and got to taste some amazing chocolate and treats, I even wound up buying some caramel squares covered in chocolate with sea salt sprinkled on them. We fed some turtles, as well as spent some time at marine land and got to feed and pet a live dolphin. We also toured this really cool and beautiful church in downtown St. Augustine. We got to eat at the SaltLife shack which turned out to bame an awesome restaurant. We went fishing on an airboat and I managed to catch four fish including a 5lb spotted sea trout, and a stingray. Of course we also had a fish fry one night. It's still kinda crazy to think all that happened in just less than a week. 

    This trip has been fun, and I can honestly say I like St. Augustine, and wouldn't mind coming back one day. Tomorrow we head home so hoping for a smooth trip home.  

Winshape camp

    So this week I helped out with the winshape camp in dalton, let me just start off by saying it is truly an amazing experience, whether your a kid or a volunteer.  I was only able to volunteer two days, due to treatment, and leaving for vacation the same week.

    Monday: (each day we (the volunteers) had to be there by seven am, and it would last till about six pm.) I was in the Hippo group, from the safari tribe (three tribes total, with different animal groups) had about twenty kids. We helped take down the welcome equipment then we had worship, and then the groups would divide. All the staff were extremely nice people, and it was nice being treated like I wasn't sick, since they didn't know my medical history. It was just really a nice feeling being treated infriggerent from both the girls and guys. 

     While I was a helper in the hippo group during the skill time I was assigned to painting (one of the indoor skills). That was a lot of fun, and was an easy way to talk to the kids. 

    There was a lot of walking and physical activities as well. Sadly the first day I did have a few.. Incidents. The first was I lost my keys and tried to search everywhere for them. That also added stress to all the other stuff I had did that day so far. Finally I decide to take a break, and the minute I sit down my heart started racing. Now usually when this happend if it lasts longer than ten minutes I have to go to the ER. Well I had no car keys. So luckily I was sitting outside of painting and fast foods which my friend Triston was in. So I told myself if the ten minutes pass then I would go in and get him to take me to the ER. Luckily my heart slowed down after right minutes and twenty seven seconds. The few people that found out about it were a little worried though.  Also during the last worship session my keys were found!

    Tuesday: I decided to cut out all outdoor activities in order to avoid what happened the previous day. That really seemed to work I had more energy and I was able to enjoy the day a lot more. People did check in on me throughout the day. Which is probably a good thing, means they care. 

    Looking forward to next year! As well as I'm looking forward to headin to the beach tomorrow!

Lesson learned

    You know I can honestly say I'd rather choose to live a life full of all emotions, as opposed to living without feeling anything. While at first a life without grief, pain, anger, and guilt sounds pretty good, you have to remember the full price all the good emotions would be gone too. Like excitement, and love.

    Recently I got to somehow experience this (how I'm not exactly sure). It was odd, but it was like suddenly all the things that were effecting me emotionally one day, simply were untethered from me. At first I thought it was a good thing, but after awhile it was more odd than anything. Things would happen that normally would get a reaction out of me however, nothing happened. 

    Finally though I got some really good news, something that I should have been ecstatic about, while I was happy, there was honestly not any excitement. That's what got me thinking because I realized normally I would be jumping up and down over this. So what was the problem? 

     Well the next day things were apparently back to normal however, it was funny, I was driving when I suddenly felt a little sad about something that had happened the last few days. I smiled because even though I was upset, I was just happy to have the feeling of the emotion back. 

    So I'm not sure what it all meant maybe it was showing me something, a lesson I needed to see, or maybe it was all in my head. Either way I did learn something. A world without emotions isn't real, and neither would a world with only good emotions. We need the bad stuff in our lives so that we truly appreciate the good. Plus the feelings we get just remind us that we are human, and we care. 

True friends

    Sometimes in life, we will be lucky enough to make true friends. Friends who will never leave our life. Just like those select people will always be there when we need them, we need to always be there for them, and not take them for granted. You'll be lucky if you get one, or even two people in your life that you can call a true friend. Because it's rare, and not just everybody will click in that way.

     I can honestly say in my life at the moment I'm able to say that I have at least one person who I consider to be a true friend. This person has done so much for me over the years, and has always definitely brought out the best in me. I just hope that I've been able to help him along the way in return. 

    We have so many people in our lives, we come to meet people everyday. Some of those people come into, and then eventually out of our life. While some slip in and out, othes hang out in the background. And then there are the few that stick around through everything. Each setback, and life event just adding to the strength of it. 

    I'm hoping that what people say about distance not being able to effect true friendships to be true. Anyway, if you have a true friend let them know how much you appreciate them, and if you don't try looking a little harder you might not see that one person trying to break through to you.