Entering my first real relationship in the year following my high school graduation, intrinsic to teenage boys, I had a hard time keeping my pants on. A few months later she was pregnant, and just as intrinsic to teenage boys ... I ran; for the first half of the pregnancy I ran. I refused to "believe" that the baby was mine, refused to acknowledge my actions and I hid from accepting responsibility for my choice. I'm not clear on what monumental force finally persuaded me to pull my head out of that dark place; I do remember, reflecting on my parents divorce when I was 8, thinking that it would be insanely unfair to deny this child the one thing that I had always needed. Much of my childhood was spent wondering what I had done to make my father leave, not knowing or understanding why I didn't have a dad like other kids. This was my baby girl and I am her father. Regardless of how scared I was, Nikki was a responsibility that I just couldn't run from. All that it took was one touch of her little hand and I fell in love with her. My resolution then was simple; I couldn't wish for anyone, especially my own child, to live life without a dad or without parents who held an amount of affection for each other. I made a promise then, a promise that was never mine to make, a promise to my children that they would always have a father. This relationship lasted three years; we never married.

Six months later I met Katurah. I may be sued someday for mentioning names. Just seeing her name in print engulfs me in a black tide of regret. I had found my best friend. I was "in love." One year later we were married; three apartments later we had a home ... Our home! A split level, four bedroom, two bathroom home with a one acre lot that we transformed into a "park." I had always wanted to have a home in the middle of a park. Seven years into the marriage people still asked if we'd just met. The spark in our eyes was growing. I had the life that I believed was always out of reach for me. I knew real happiness; consumed by it. This relationship lasted 10 years.

"Only a moment when you have 100 years to live." Five for Fighting.

The child support obligation became compounded with the divorce; support for my youngest two boys took effect and for six months, July to Dec of '99, I lived in my car, parking it where I could. My "rent" consisted of $100 a month in gas money since I had to keep the car running at night for heat. Then the apartment hopping began. I'd save enough for first and last months rent and deposit; move in; then two months later when I couldn't make rent I was back to my car while I built up another savings. Eventually Pay from a series of second jobs started coming in and I held an apartment for the remainder of the following year. Through the denseness of that time, my body ached for a bed, my psyche ached for companionship, and my heart ached for my kids. I missed them so much that holding on to that apartment was the essence of all that I lived for.

A few years into my solitude I'd found a great friend. She's my age; never been married; and successful; MA, BA, and MFA degrees ... being 34, female and single people question that; not that it really needs to be; people like to talk and create conflict in others' lives to make up for the insignificance of their own. I mention her in lieu of other friends because she, oddly to me at the time, honestly had no interest in a relationship. To her the best kind of relationship would be a man who has his own home to go to across town. My perception was "why would you want to choose to be alone?"

In light of two relationships ... the first saturated with fighting; the second; the last year was silent oblivion; and relationships since have seen their share of tension ... I've gained valuable insight from my friends position. Some of us are alone because we've been alone too long. Having a man in her life now would disrupt her serenity. And for some of us; we are alone because we haven't been alone long enough. Always having someone in my life disabled my ability to realize my identity; disabled my ability to derive some strength and stability in knowing that I don't have to have someone in order to simply survive. I have to find that stability with my self and find happiness in being alone if I ever hope to make another person happy in the future.

For someone who's had little experience with being alone, it's very difficult. The loneliness and depression can, at times, be very intense. On one hand I "push" friends away or forgo making any because, as life has taught me, any relationship is unstable and may not last. On the other hand my life seems so worthless without that other person to build my world around and friends Bar-B-qing in the back yard. Not because I have to have that, but because that's the way I was raised; to believe that a broken family was miserable; that not having a wife and kids was an incomplete life. I believed that "The best part of me ... is someone else." That may seem highly pathetic, though for better or worse, that's who I am. Since childhood I can't say that I know the bliss or comfort in being alone. Until my divorce I'd never experienced it as an adult. I loved it as a child, but what child doesn't like their solitude? I had made a transition from social isolation to social dependent, a stage in my life where my shyness has become the fuel of my depression and self-destruction. However, I do have a sense now that I will not grow as a person without a portion of my life spent where the best part of me is actually ... me; inasmuch as I have to learn to be comfortable with that.

"The most valuable of all education is to make yourself do the thing you have to do, whether you like it or not." Author unknown.

Society has changed the meaning of being alone since I was a kid. Many people hold onto their relationships for as long as they can even if love never has been or no longer is a factor. And some cling to abusive relationships out of fear of loneliness, leading me to believe that the power of loneliness is much stronger than the power of physical or emotional pain.

So ... is it conceivable that some of us are simply not capable of being alone; that we can't emotionally function and we settle to save ourselves from being alone? Is that a detriment to our character if so?

It's silent chaos for me. It's a constant internal tempest between loneliness and an unwillingness to put myself in a position to ever again love someone so much that my world crumbles when it's over; although ... I wouldn't have wanted to live life without having experienced that kind of love; and the children that were born of it. Solitude then becomes a blessing and a curse; a peaceful resort; a prison with no bars.

My actions and choices are as much or more at the source for this end as misfortunes and fate. I live with them ... and very slowly I learn from them.

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