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

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.