The Unwanted Story

Hello everyone, this is a little bit of a different type of “episode”. This is my blog post. In today's post I will be talking about the origin of the word “unwanted” in my life. I will show the story in a series of three different stages. Starting with birth, then childhood, and ending it with High school.

July 6th, 2000, the Flannery family was complete, my mom was 39 and my dad was 46. They were in a rough patch of their relationship, which I say patch, but it was a constant patch. They were fighting and the four other kids knew they were going to get a divorce eventually. My parents had 4 kids already with the oldest being 17 graduating high school the next year. They were ready to end it all and live separately for the kids’ sake.

Fast forward one whole year (July 6th, 2001) and I entered the world. What the hell happened in the one year I skipped! The answer is a lot. My family was ripped apart with the news of a baby in the family. So, ripped apart my dad walked out the door. He left. My mom was pregnant, and my dad left her. 3 weeks before I was born my dad came back to my family to support my Mom. Although he came back the damage was already done. He could not fix anything that he already damaged. When I was born it took him 3 months to leave again. Only 3 months. With being so young, I was unaware of all of this happening, but it's not like it didn’t still affect me. The sense of being unwanted was there from the beginning. My dad leaving and not coming back, made it seem like it was me that pushed my family over the edge. My sister Margie took my dad's side and moved out of our house and lived with him. My sister, Mary Beth fought with my mom at a young age and moved out when I was about 5 years old. That left my sister Maureen, my brother Mike and my mom living together. Since my closest sibling was 8 years older than me it was hard to really spend time with them because they were always out with their friends. To this day I cherish every moment I spent with my siblings when I was younger.

Growing up I played baseball A LOT! I traveled up and down the east coast playing baseball every weekend. Every tournament was different, but one thing stayed the same. The constant was the dads who were there to support my teammates. My dad never came to my games. My dad never wanted to support me at my games because it wasn’t something that interested him. He couldn’t come to my games drunk, but if he could, maybe he would have been there.

My childhood taught me a lot. It taught me how to live my life with a smile on my face no matter what. It made me learn that not everything is always cupcakes and roses. If one section of my life taught me more about myself and life, it was my teen years.

Middle school was middle school, the usual middle school drama, but high school changed the game forever. Freshman year I was nervous, I had a burden on me to succeed and make a name for myself because my siblings all left lasting impacts at the same high school. Well, I sure did leave an impact. I started liking this girl and let's just say it changed me. Her previous boyfriend did not like me at all. So, him and his BMX, Dirt Bike riding, lifted truck driving friends came after me. Making fake accounts of me on Instagram and twitter telling me to kill myself. The accounts' names were Kys_seankys. I did not know what to do. I walked in the hallways nervous of who would be behind me. Sure, enough it was exactly what I thought it would be. I was chased. I was chased around the hallways of a high school with other students wanting to beat the shit out of me. Luckily (sort of), my brother was a police officer in town, and he knew the school resource officer and he helped me out. The rest of freshman year was somewhat normal, I didn’t really have too many friends.

Sophomore year was the same shit but this time it took it another level. The same kids hated me and wanted to destroy me, simply because my brother was a cop in town, and he was busting their parties. They always thought that since my brother was a cop that I was giving him information on where parties were. I didn’t give a shit, all I cared about was if someone was going to rip my head off.

Junior year changed my life. I was a football coach of a high school football team. This one kid got a ticket from my brother and it did not go well for me. I was again being chased around the school. I was benign pinned up against the walls with a kid fist in my face. I was hit with a hockey stick in the place boys should not be hit, making me bleed. I did not know what to do if this kid swung at me because he was WAYYYY bigger than me. so, I asked the football coach who is my biggest mentor. He did quite possibly the greatest thing anyone has ever done for me. After a gut-wrenching loss, he stood up on the bus ride home and asked the team “what are we as a team?” resulting in them saying a family. He followed up with “what do we do for our family when they have someone who wants to hurt them?” they answered with “fight for them!”. He turns around and says “Coach Flannery is one of us, he is family. If you see anyone touch him, you have my permission to protect him.” To this day, I remember it, simply because it is something my father never would do. After that day, my life was different. People actually liked me. People actually hung out with me.

Hunter Lewis was one of my friends in middle school and somewhat in my first two years of high school. Justin Iaccio was a friend in middle school, but I did not really talk to him in high school. Justin was a monster for the football team and was being recruited to play football for Army West Point. He had an extra ticket to the Army/Navy football game, and he invited me. Ever since that day, they were my absolute best friends. They saved me. For the first time in my life, I felt wanted. I felt as if my friends actually wanted to hang out with me. I could not be happier.

I started a student section for my high school, and I was thriving. I was at the top in a way.

My senior was my best year, living life to the fullest. I won most school spirit and really made an impact on my high school forever. My principal mentioned me in his speech and It just made me happy. I came from this horrible spot in my life and pushed through and came out a better person.

When deciding for a college, I wanted that sense of being wanted. My dream school Temple did not make me feel WANTED as much as Neumann made me feel. Dr. Lanzillo made me feel wanted at Neumann with a handwritten letter. Alex Rucci and Jess Cirone made me feel wanted as well and I can’t thank them enough for the things they did for me. I am finally happy in my life and I aim to forget the horrible things that have happened, but it is what has made me.

As humans I feel we are always reaching to be wanted. We are always trying to make it to the top. When we get there, it's sort of high of some sort. So, in life always aim to feel wanted.