I didn’t think I would have a family, I was actually pretty dead set on not having one. After marrying my first girlfriend at 19 and throwing it away at 20 due to alcoholic habits and extreme PTSD symptoms, I spent the next 13 years keeping a distance between me and everybody. Of course, I had a few girlfriends over those years, and I may have loved one or two- although I was too afraid to love in a healthy way- I lived in a state of fear 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I was afraid to love a woman and have them leave me, afraid to be loved by a woman and not love them back, and afraid to impregnate a woman who I did not want to raise children with. I did not want to continue the absent-father-cycle, nor did I want to be trapped in a relationship with somebody I did not want to be with. And, I was deeply ashamed of how I viewed, treated, and ended my first marriage; where saying my vows meant nothing more than saying an empty promise to a God I did not believe in while nursing the last bottle of beer in the wee morning hours.

Ever since I can remember I have been ruthlessly selfish. My time, my money, my interests, my writing, my dreams, my house, my way or the highway. I knew that having kids would either force me to put my dreams and desires aside, or force me to change what my dreams and desire were- and I didn’t want either.

And then BAM! at the age of 33, while living on the homestead in Happy Valley, knee-deep in applications for Master’s programs at fully-funded universities in the Lower 48, with the hopes of making connections and becoming a better writer in hot pursuit of an author career, Savanna entered my life. They say that true love hits you when you least expect it, and only after you love yourself. I always thought it was some cliché bullshit, but it’s not- not in my case, at least. Because that is exactly what happened.

And while I had given up the hope of finding the woman to spend the rest of my life with, to raise children with, to adapt my dreams and desires with, and to love and be loved by- I found her and she found me. If we would have met a decade prior, a few years prior, a few weeks prior, a few hours prior- perhaps things would not be how they are today. So much better than I ever expected!

Robert Stark

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