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"It is better to have love and lost than to have never loved at all." I am not sure who said that and I do not claim it as my own. However, I do find myself wondering, can a person, can I, believe both statements, it is better to have loved and lost and to have never loved at all.

Ever since I was a kid I would fantasize about having a family of my own. I wanted the wife, the children, the house and the dog. My household growing up wasn't very stable and I wasn't able to fully experience my family as "a unit". So my view of how a family "should" run and how a man and wife interact was distorted and then with my parents divorcing when I was twelve and my mom moving out my model for a marriage was cut even shorter. While I would still look forward to the future about how it might be whenever I would get married, I had no idea that I would be absolutely clueless about how to be a husband and how to live a life committed to another person.

When I was 11 or 12, I don't recall exactly, I learned about sex. I was taught by Eazy E, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, and I was bought a Playboy (not all in the same day of course), and various other mediums were introduced to me at this age and moving forward. My perception of relationships from this point forward became even more skewed.

I went through multiple relationships from when I was 13 until I was 18, all of which were physical relationships.

When I was 18 I met the love of my life. No one ever challenged me, treated me respectfully, encouraged me, and straight up loved me like she did and I hadn't cared for, thought of, or wanted to be with someone as much as I did for her. I only hope that the before mentioned effects she had on me, I, in-turn had on her. However, I did have my issues and I am amazed that when I did ask her to marry me she said yes. We were together almost two years when we got married, very young, and very much in love.

I don't want to do a play by play of the time that we were married. I have so many good and bad memories that I could sit here writing for hours on the agony and the ecstasy that we shared. My main point is that there was a time when we were both head over heels for one another and it was good.

I found out what it was like to be close to someone without having to be between the sheets, and what it was like to be close to someone and have that time between the sheets actually mean something, I experienced some life-altering events that have the power to tear two people apart as well as draw them closer to each other. I dealt with day to day issues (granted I was not very good at it). I had a child with the person that I loved and yes we had the two dogs. I believed that I was living out the fantasy that I played over and over again in my head as a young lad.

There are so many experiences and cherished memories that I have during our decade together, I do miss those times every now and again. I was even accepted into her family which to me, they seemed to be normal, they seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. But there closeness and just the sheer size of their family were foreign to me and I was very uncomfortable around "normal". So while I was like a fish out of water around them. I very much love them and hold them dear to my heart always.

So the answer to the first statement, it is better to have loved and lost is a yes. I loved very much and lost very much as well and I will always love Nicole.

I don’t know how long it takes to really get over a divorce, I don’t know if one every really does get over a divorce. I haven’t dealt with emotional pain very well throughout my life, I did a lot of self-medicating, but now that I am sober it is different. I have felt and went through the highs and lows of divorce.

Most of the time I don’t think about her and our divorce, but there are times when it is all I can think about.

I miss coming home to someone, waking up next to someone, kissing someone, traveling, sharing small moments that are hilarious to only the two of us, parenting and making love with someone. It’s amazing the little details I found out about a person most of which made me love the person more and some I could really do without. But that is what makes relationships unique, that is what makes them worthwhile.

Now there is nobody to wake up with, fall asleep with, share life with. It’s lonely. It feels like I might never get to experience that again. I’m afraid of another relationship because I don’t want to waste time dating and spending time with someone I shouldn’t be with, I don’t want to fail morally and I still don’t know if my perception of a marriage is where it should be. I don’t want to hurt someone like I did in my previous marriage.

Despite the void that I feel in my life, the lingering pain of the divorce, the what if’s that run through my head from time to time, the guilt of what I did rearing its ugly head every so often and the desire for that to just go away. I have come to the conclusion that the answer to the second statement, “Never to have loved at all”, is no. I am grateful for love I had, grateful for the marriage I was in, and grateful for whom I spent it with. The pain will subside. As I keep pressing in with God and rely on him more for everything he will make all things right. As long as I am not so thick headed and learn from the mistakes I made, I can be successful and happy in the future as well.

Yes Pain sucks. It is annoying, exhausting, and discouraging. But it is also beneficial because it means that I am growing. It means that God is working something out in me that he sees needs fixing and wants to make me a better man, more like his son, in this process. I don’t know what the end result will look like and I don’t know why it is taking so long, but I do know that He is God and I am not and the timeframe has to do more with my pride than his ability.