That’s not family.

For somewhere that wants to be called “home” you can be offly exclusive. I’ve called you “home” most of my life and now that I’ve stepped away for a bit that “family” I came to know isn’t allowed to talk to me. 

That’s not how home works. I’ve none most of those people since I was 4 but if they saw me on the street they aren’t allowed to talk to me. If I called them up they probably wouldn’t answer. If I invited them to take part in an event, and even if they wanted to attend they would be highly advised not to. That’s not how anhoke or family works. That’s how the mob works.. or a cult. 

I can’t see a family not being happy for a member when there life is Changing in a way that is clearly for the better. I can’t see a family suddenly dropping any support they had for a person because there life got busy or because they had to move. Not when you’ve been family nineteen years. 
Maybe I don’t understand family. Maybe that is how family works. The same “family” that’s not being a family though is who helped give me my base knowledge of family. The knowledge I built all my relationships on. I just can’t see myself doing that to the “family” I’ve built. 

Keep searching for Fireflies ❤

Reggie. 

A letter to the number I can’t delete.

I cleaned out my contacts today. All the numbers that we’re of no use anymore. Yet when I came to yours I selected and unselected it several times. I told myself “just delete it” “you won’t reach who you want with that number.” “Heaven doesn’t have cell service” . I knew I was right but I didn’t delete it. 

I thought about texting it in fact. Thought about writing out the words I’d wished I said before it was to late. I’ve been fussing at myself since it happened for not messaging you the dozens of times you’d popped into my head. Maybe if I had there wouldn’t be so many people questioning of the accident was really an accident. Maybe I wouldn’t be questioning it. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened. I know we weren’t super close in the last year but I always counted you as family. 

I’m sorry J. I wish I had texted you about the anniversary of the buffaloing. I wish I had told you I missed you. I wish I’d said something. I wish I had introduced you to “Rueben”. I wish I could rewind time. But I can’t. So instead I keep your number saved. I keep considering texting it what I’d say to you. I wish heaven had phones, it would make this so much easier. 
Bet you can see ALL the fireflies up there. 
Keep searching for Fireflies,

Reggie. 

A letter to the girl in the corner.

I am you. Trying to stay out of the light. Trying to get by without being noticed. Trying to avoid whatever it is that sent you into this corner to begin with.

I’m usually trying to avoid anything that will send me into yet another anxiety attack. Trying to avoid the stuttering and of beat breathing and the inability to form coherent thoughts in a normal response time.
Sometimes I stay in that corner long enough to just catch my breath. Other times I’m there so long I should change my address. I’m there long enough to feel like “Ok, you can face the world again” and then I step out of the corner that me safe. And in those moments I feel like me.
You know those moments, the ones where your smile is real and genuine and you can laugh without it being forced. Oh how I live for& love those moments, how I love those moments. The moments where I see a brief flash of the Reggie I was before anxiety and depression started to rule my life.
Oh but how few and far between those moments are. It feels like I blink and poof I am scurrying back to that corner. Back to so called safety. It isn’t though, it isn’t safe. The darkness of that corner is where the anxiety and depression live, it’s where they wait for me. I hate that corner. I hate that it loves me and seems so inviting from the middle of the room.
I’m tired of that corner. I’m tired of the battle with these monsters. Its a losing battle it feels like. And I’m tired of losing. My only choice in this battle I’m tired of fighting are to win or give up and I want to win, I will win. It will take time I know, and lots of prayer. I can do this.

Keep searching for Fireflies. 

Reggie

Effort

Being a grown up is hard. Like really hard. I think the thing I struggle the most with though is keeping in touch with people. I feel like this is probably a lot of peoples week points though. We find ourselves saying things like “let’s make plans!” Or “we should totally get together soon it’s been ages”. And then we go seven months without talking to that person again. If we even talk to them then. 

It’s costs us friends and loved ones and memories. We don’t do it on purpose, or at least I don’t. It’s justhard to match up everyone’s schedules. We let time get away from us. We pour ourselves into our job and work way more then we should. We lose that social life we all so desperately want and figure that social media will keep it alive. It doesn’t though. If anything social media is one of the #1 reasons our social life dies. 

We are all so busy trying to get ahead in life we forget that love and friendship are such important things. Things that need work and attention. We try and blame everyone else for our relationships fizzing out but most of the time it’s our own fault. 

I’ll admit it’s my fault. My depression and anxiety keep me from reaching out so instead I keep myself busy by over working and exhausting myself. I find myself letting my schedule get in the way, i find myself making excuses. I’m afraid when I do get to know a person, or more when they get to know me, they aren’t going to like what they see. 

It’s not that I am an unlikable person it’s just that my brain tells me I’m not good enough. 

I want to be better at staying in touch and making plans and that’s what I’m going to work towards. I’m going to fight my brain. I’m going to fight my anxiety. I guess we will see who wins. 

Keep searching for Fireflies. 

Reggie. 

PS.

Still accepting Q &A emails at searching4firefliesblog@gmail.com

An open letter to the”friend” that made me look like a fool.

I would have stood up for you. Heck I did stand up for you. Then you looked me in the face and LIED to me. I put my relationship with the man I’m spending forever with on the line for our “friendship”. 

I don’t know what kind of friends you have had but you don’t lie to your friends. You don’t make your friends “look like the enemy” to their S.O. and family. You don’t make your friend look like a fool. 

You’ve made me be closed off to anyone who tries to be my friend. You’ve made trust even harder for me then it was before. Do you know how STUPID you made me look and feel. I thought you were someone I could count on. 

 

I trusted you and you lied to me. I just want to yell at you but I also want nothing to do with you ever again. I don’t ever want to open my phone and see a message from you or your name and face by a post. I just want to erase you and your memory from my life. I can’t believe I let you make a fool out of me.

I have to show myself to tthe people who told me how you truly were. People I defended you too. I have to hear those hated and despised words “I told you so.”. And you know these people you know they will use that phrase. 

I’d like to say I wish the best for you but right now I don’t wish you anything except to stay far away from me. 

Reggie.

An open letter to the uncle that disappeared,

I called you my hero. Not just because your job as a fireman made you one but because I looked up to you. You didn’t let any obstacles in life stop you from achieving your dreams. I mean maybe you still don’t. I wouldn’t know though. 

I remember one of the last times I talked to you. I was lying in a hospital bed and scared out of my mind. I was barely 16 and almost dying. You were telling me you’d studied what my problem was and knew a man who had seen one up close. That the insides looked like butter and cheese. You were trying to make me laugh. I had just finished a project on you for a class. A project on heros. 

When you cut off contact it hurt the most. M&E didn’t hurt me like you did. M had told me for years I didn’t have to call her aunt and E was barely older than me. 

I grieved your loss as of you had died though. You had died and there was no funeral. No closure. So I’m writing this to try and get some closure. Isn’t that what your therapist told you to do? Isn’t that why you sent that heartbreaking email to mom? The woman who had basically raised you? 

You’ll never read this though. You’ve probably forgotten I exist, you didn’t know “Reggie” anyways so if you do stumble upon this it will hold no meaning. I’m mad at you. I have been for years. 

I forgive you though. For hurting me. For forgetting where you came from. For crushing the heart of a girl who thought you hung the moon and stars in the sky. 

I hope you’re safe. I hope your rescue family has your back. I hope your wife and little boy are happy and healthy. I hope one day you remember your family and when you do you smile. 

I hope you watch for fireflies and even if you don’t understand why I hope the light up your heart. 
I love you. 
Reggie. 

Today’s firefly.

Before the relationship I’m in now I never had a serious relationship. Not one where the guy said “I know we’ve been dating a while but I want to perfect moment to actually ask you to be mine”. Not one where he stops at the gas station on his way to see me and asks if I want something while knowing exactly what I want and Getting it anyway. 

I know these are simple and little things but sometimes it’s those things that make you feel in love. He goes out of his way to make sure he is there for me in my stressful moments. He understands when date night gets cut short because I’m tired and stressed. He tries everything he can think of when he catches me mid panic attack. 

He knows my favorite wine and my favorite food. He lets me pick the Netflix show and watches scary movies even though he hates them, just because I ask. 

I never thought I’d find my prince charming but I think I’ve come pretty close. I never thought I’d get a happy ending but I can see it in the works every time I look in his eyes. 

I’m so blessed to have this man and I can thank God enough for him. 

That’s today’s firefly for me. 

Keep searching for Fireflies. 

Reggie.

P.s. 

Still accepting Q&A question. 

That feeling

Have you ever gone somewhere that at one point felt like home and we’re surrounded by people you used to consider family and felt like an outsider. Felt like you didn’t belong. 

I mean a place you had gone for YEARS. Then you miss like a month of meetings there and all of a sudden you are an outsider looking in. It’s the weirdest feeling. Suddenly these people you’ve known since you were four are completely strangers. This place you once considered safe is a different planet. 

I don’t get how that happens and in such a small amount of time. You’re still you and they are still them but nothing is the same. And when you struggle with anxiety and depression you feel like it’s your fault when most of the time you’ve done nothing to intiate a change. 

So when the change does happen your anxiety feeds off of it and you start to feeling like the walls are closing in. 

I just needed to express that feeling tonight. I don’t know what I expected to get from this post or what I expected anyone else to get. Maybe it will help you to know you’re not alone. 
Keep looking for Fireflies.
Reggie.

P.s.

I don’t even know if anyone is reading this but if you are I would like to do a “get to know your blogger”/Q&A post for one of these blogtobers so if you have anything you want to know feel free to email me or comments here. 

Email: searching4firefliesblog@gmail.com

Thanks

Reggie

Withdraw

My anxiety has been bad lately. That’s probably why I haven’t been updating a lot recently. I was withdrawing from life again. From everything. I’m trying hard to stay afloat but it’s so hard. 

I spend most days fighting tears and nausea. I keep it to myself and keep putting in an act. That one I’ve mastered over the years. The smiles and the laughs that don’t quitr breach the surface. 

I don’t want to be that Reggie. The empty shell of who I am. I want to be genuinely happy about things. So I’m going to try harder. I’m going to reach out more. It will be slow and I probably won’t be able to do it alone and that will be hard. I want to be me though and I want to believe in myself. So I’m going to try my best. 

Keep searching for Fireflies.

Reggie.

Five year question .

When I was 18 I was asked where I saw myself in five years. I’m sure you’ve probably been asked that before it’s  the usual question of the “adults” in your life. It was a question  I HATED getting asked because at 18 mkst days i wanted to be dead. Today on my 23rd birthday I am in a place that is completely different then where I wanted to be at 18. 

When I was 18 I was sure that if I hadn’t given up by  23 I would be an RN, married and maybe even have a kid. Sometime I wish I was where 18 year old me wanted me to be. I’ve come to realize though that maybe that’s not where God wanted me but where I wanted me. I wanted to be a young wife and mom, and yes I know ” you still have time for that Reggie, 23 isn’t old”. Yeah yeah yeah. I’ve heard it a million times. where I’m at wasn’t my five year plan though. 

Where I’m at is working in a daycare with amazing children I get to watch grow and learn and become small humans. Where I am is engaged to an amazing man who I will call my husband before year six starts a year from now. A man who I’ll be able.tp call the father of my children hopefully by year seven. Where I am is content and happy with the life i see unfolding before, the life that seems to be more of what God has planned, or at least I hope so. 

Where I am is 23, alive and not thinking about giving up. 

So during this 23rd year of life I will keep my eyes looking for fireflies and on God more than I did in the 22nd.
Keep searching for Fireflies.

Reggie.