Trueeee Friends

We can't choose our family members, but you can choose a lifelong buddy. I think it's liberating to have friends as you realize that you aren't sequestered to the toxic behaviors and abuse of family members and can choose to have a 'family' outside them. I think it's hard for me to consider many people truly friends since my definition of friend has such a high standard to me. Friends have to be there for you in tough times and good, seen you at your worst, and understands me more or less. That's why I believe friends can be family and family can be friends it's very much a fluid definition between the two for me. I mean I know the more colloquial definition being that you just have to know the person outside one particular context (because if not that's just an acquaintance), but I feel like that definition is such a low hoop to jump through and in that case most people have a lot of friends. At the same time that colloquial definition is so lonely because you have a bunch of people who 'know' you, but not really, you know. And the added bonus of friends is that you can have a favorite one, hence why you have a best friend (because on principle you can't have a favorite family member).

Anyway, I guess that's my take on the theme friends and I will include some pictures of my week and what I did:

I went to Destin on Saturday and there was a Trump parade but I can't say I was surprised because after all it was North Florida. And I went to Alabama for the first time which was crazy because we I've spent 21 years hating on this one state, and not gonna lie, it's basically Georgia... It hurts to say it, but aside from the incest thing, it looks almost exactly the same. Also, I saw dolphins and swam in the Gulf of Mexico for the first time. It's definitely was warmer than any Atlantic Ocean Beach I've been too. Unfortunately with warm water came nasty critters. First I was on my period and I'm pretty sure these minos were attracted to it, so they kept coming up the shore and it was honestly gross simply because I hate feeling nasty scales touch my leg, so more or less I have a fear of fish touching me, so until I stopped bleeding I hate to sit out on the shore. Then when I was sitting on the shore nasty critters like conchs and these weird white crustaceans kept touching as they borrowed in the ground and was disturbed by waves or my digging. Then when I went to go sit on the beach crabs kept shooting out of the sand and tbh I was afraid of them I just didn't want to get pinched and also I didn't want to get close enough and see their body details because these are the same gulf crabs I eat :( and there's something off-putting about seeing the food you eat alive, you know. Especially when it's so ugly and looks like an oversized bug. Speaking of bugs I got by sand fleas for the first time and to be honest it's one of the most painful bites I've gotten since I was a kid. The last time I felt this kind of annoyingly painful bites was when I was unknowingly standing in a fire ant mound and was eaten alive by them and to be undressed in a Publix parking lot because they traveled up my clothes and were biting me everywhere. Apparently these sand fleas come out at night especially on fool moons...

I've been working a lot and yesterday was my first day "off," though I had to go to work later that evening. So I decided to get some Starbucks, go thrifting, and evidently ended up eating Chipotle and Chick-fil-A for dinner (I was so full, but Naoni and Sebastian didn't stop me lol). But my little dude, Sebastian, is a working for the first time in his 21 years of living and I couldn't be prouder of him. He's past all of his training and can make fancy mixed drinks now. I'm excited to go and be a customer, so I can leave him a fat tip like he has done for me at my other jobs. Other than that life has been okay being home is stressful, but I'm hopeful life will get better soon.

(The Gulf of Mexico)

(These are sandbars and it was only 7 feet ( 2.13 m) deep