Survival Sometimes Means Having To Face The Most Impossible Circumstances And Having To Run Directly In The Opposite Direction Of What You Might Think Of Doing Before You're Faced With Making A Decision.

I've thought about this for a while, and I think it is a story worth telling. This is a story of survival, mental health battles, trauma, and loss. I say survival first because that is the most important part of this story or any story in this crazy world, survival.

To describe me as a young teen I would have to use one word and only one word, lost. I was lost as a young kid, lost as an adolescent, and lost as a young man. Like most kids, I didn't really know what I wanted to be or have an idea of what to do with my life. Stumbling repeatedly, lost in a world of emotional upheaval, secrets, and the lies I told to make myself feel better, my life had taken twists and turns that I only began to understand much, much later in my story. I wandered through life like a card player, playing hands that were being dealt because I had no idea how to deal with my own cards.

I had a step-father by the legal definition of the word. By my definition, he was just my dad. I learned about being a father from him, for all of his faults. When I made mistakes he would blame himself, second guess his decisions, and play the role of Monday morning quarterback. I guess it is how you learn but by the time I was sixteen I felt like anything I did, right or wrong, was on me. Nobody was putting a gun to my head and I was intelligent enough to weigh things out before making decisions. I just suffered from a case of no impulse control. It's a miracle that my parents didn't disown me during my teenage years.

Having some friends I wasn't a lonely kid or anything, even though I tended to feel like I didn't really fit in. I spent a good portion of my youth with my head in a book and then came girls, cars, parties, booze, rock and roll, and eventually drugs. I experimented with everything. Life was a great experiment and I was bound and determined to experience all that it had to offer, even the worst of it at times. Perhaps, if I'd paid a little more attention to what I was doing, instead of the future and what I hoped would happen, I wouldn't have been the wayward, uninspired kid I became. So, there we are, a little background pre-1990. Always looking forward, my head in the clouds, never paying attention to where I was and what I was doing.

Some things came unnaturally easy to me and some things I struggled with and continue to do so to this very day. One of those things, on paper, appears to be both unnaturally easy and a struggle. Relationships were somewhat of a struggle but girls came easy. So when it got interesting in the summer of 1990 there really isn't much of a surprise that it was because of a girl.

I had a bit of an edgy side to me, a rough around the edges, bad boy appeal that seemed to serve me well when I was paying enough attention to realize I was being hit on or flirted with. In June of 1990, I lived across the street from my first real crush. We were friends, hung out together, and occasionally found ourselves in the same circles, but that was as far as it went. My best friend was a year older than me and had just come back from basic training. I was out in my driveway at my parents, sitting in the front of my car, when the girl across the street came over to us, asking me if I'd be home tonight.

"Yes," I say, not knowing where she was going with the question.

"Good," she tells me. "Leave your window unlocked. I'm going to sneak in about two o'clock."

The gods' honest truth makes no sense, is hard to believe even though I lived it, and only after I matured enough to understand it, did I see where I went wrong. But, as an eighteen-year-old male, it's not every day that you have a good-looking, blue-eyed, blonde with an athletic body hit on you. When she sort of sashayed away, giving me a cute look over her shoulder, my buddy tells me how I'm a "lucky bastard" and wants to know what changed while he was away.

I did know what to expect would actually happen but I did, against what should have been my better judgment, leave my window unlocked. I passed out. Mostly from having been up at six a.m. because it's early in the summer and I'm still on school time, and two a.m. is pretty late after all. What happened afterward is pretty much the same kind of awkward thing that happened to Monica and Chandler when their long-standing friendship went somewhere else. I didn't know how or really why, but after palling around all through puberty, going our separate ways for a while during the teenage years of sexual awakening, and one awkward discussion in a driveway, the one girl that mattered to me was in bed with me.

There's a lot to the story of getting to this point that I won't share much about because the truth is a powerful and painful thing sometimes. What started as a long-standing curiosity by both of us, turned into a fork in the road. If I'd gone left, life might have been much, much different. I went right because when you're best friend tells you they love you, it's one of the most incredible feelings in the world. That trip down the right road would soon become a rocky road that I never got off of and never could have even if I'd tried.

We were together from 1990 to October 0f 1993. By the winter of 1990, we were having all the fun in the world. We were in a relationship and it was a good one. Like a lot of young men and women, we got ahead of ourselves and would let passion and spontaneity get the best of us from time to time. Christmas was great, new years even was a blast. Then came valentines day. On or around Valentines' day it would all change, the future would turn into a whirlwind, and weeks later I would find out that I was going to be a father.

Even when guys are old enough, have finished college, and are a lot more prepared for that type of life event, the revelation that the party is officially over becomes a really scary moment in time. It's tough to picture yourself as an adventurer, a traveler, a soldier, or even making a success of your life when this happens. The odds are certainly against it, as I would soon hear from friends and loved ones. Admittedly, I was a petrified child, scared of what the future was going to bring my way.

The one memory of my biological father that I held onto was the last time I saw him. I was seven years old and he spent a week or so visiting us in Illinois. When it was time for him to leave, I remember begging him not to go. Crying at the airport, my father told me his life was back east. Like I wasn't important enough for his life to be here, with me. Then, my mom's second husband, the man I called dad, was always there no matter how much I didn't deserve it, how much of a complete _______head I was being. My grandfather, even into my moms 30's and 40's was the same way, always there for his children, whether they needed advice, a little help, or a shoulder to cry on. That was going to be me, I knew it the minute she decided to keep the baby. Ultimately, that was her decision, because let's face it, that's just realistic. It's the guy's decision whether to stay and be supportive, to be involved, and to stay the course, when an unexpected pregnancy happens.

At this crucial time in our lives, when everything is so desperate, when every day is a matter of survival, I don't think you can help but be involved. -Nina Simone

The longest and scariest parts of my life were upon me but I committed to finding a way to make things work. The idea of becoming a soldier, traveling the world, having grand adventures, was traded in for parenthood and not leaving my longest-time best friend, and girl that I loved, to do this alone. So, we concoct a plan to be successful, knowing full well that the first couple of years would be tough. Boy, was it ever.

My son was an angel until he was sixteen so as a baby all I could see was a daily reminder to do better, be better, and learn from my mistakes. I wanted them both to be happy, safe, and proud of me. We had some ups and downs that first two years. Having to stay with my parents was both a blessing and a curse sometimes. And, the post-partum depression was a nightmare. She split twice because of it and both times I wound up being just a single dad, college kid, and full-time stockboy. I always knew, when it came to my son, I would always be involved because I was his dad.

Then, after almost two years of struggling, our plan was coming to fruition. I had two jobs to do that Friday and they were perhaps the most important errands I would ever run. The first was to look at a house I wanted to rent for us. The second, pick up my new duty gear and sidearm as I was about to start training in Law Enforcement and had the firing range training the next day. It's crazy to think, but firing range training, becoming a volunteer cop to get my foot in the door, me in law enforcement. It was all working out. Once I was in, the plan was she would start college and could do what she wanted, become a nurse. Hum, a nurse, and a cop. Imagine that.

I remember sitting there, on the edge of the bed, in the afternoon. The kid was taking a nap and I was trying to learn as much about the .357 Magnum that I could so I wouldn't look like a complete idiot on the range. Little did I know, the timing of what was about to happen would be something I would joke about for the rest of my life.

My wife of 5 months walked into the room and calmly tells me we need to talk.

"Sure," I say, holding up the new gun I just bought, feeling pretty proud of where things were headed. "Check it out," I say.

"Listen," she tells me, "I want a divorce."

My stomach fell out of me and my head started to spin. Had I heard her right? A divorce, why?

"Um...what...the...hell?" I struggled to ask.

"I want a divorce," she says.

It was just five months ago, we got married, an act that frankly was her idea and she convinced me that if I loved her as much as she loved me, I would go ahead and marry her. She made such a compelling argument about being together forever and how much it mattered to her that we get married. How could she want a divorce? She proposed to me! Sure, I bought her a ring, but wow! What had changed?

"Can I ask, why?"

What came next, hurt more than the time I took a bullet in an accidental discharge on a firing range.

"Jay, I only used you to get away from my parents. I've never loved you..."

"We don't even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward. In times of tragedy, of war, of necessity, people do amazing things. The human capacity for survival and renewal is awesome."-Isabel Allende

I was 21 years old and the biggest con job that anyone has ever played on someone they were involved with was being played on me. What the heck was happening? How was this possible? Had I been that stupid? The questions and emotions swirled in my head. It could have gone so much worse, however. Remember the new gear I bought, the one item in my hand that probably should have told her to wait until I was not holding a loaded gun. I looked down at it, for a minute, and then looked at her.

"Not exactly the time I would have chosen for this," I say.

She left, without another word. When she left, she left our son with me and barely took the clothes on her back. She wouldn't even show up at the hearing in March. I waited, and I waited, trying desperately to keep our little family together, to work things out for the child we had decided to raise. It was to no avail, as she was committed to the fact that she wanted her life and didn't want to be a grown-up.

For me, I went through a lot of pain and suffering, but there were a lot of moments that made up for it, so I found myself surviving one of the greatest losses of my personal life. It broke my heart to see my son grow up without a mom because for some reason I couldn't have bribed her to actually use the visitation rights I worked out with the judge. Really, the only time I ever heard from her, was when her parents wanted to see their grandson. They wouldn't deal with me because somehow it was easier to believe that the guy spending twenty hours a day five days a week and working 8 hour days on the weekends was responsible for everything that went wrong.

Eventually, albeit at a slower pace, I went on to a 23-year storied career in my first chosen field and raised a son that has turned out, on many levels, to be a better man than I ever was. I survived the events because no matter how many times I have uttered the phrasing, I give up, I quit, or I can't do it, I hung in there and found a way.

"Survival can be summed up in three words, never give up. That's the heart of it really. Just keep trying."-Bear Grylls

If you enjoyed this story, my story, please remember to let me know by clicking the heart button right below this. This is a follow-up to my top story because I had an epiphany that people might wonder after reading it, how did he get to that point in his life.