How to knit into 2ktog

I am not sure if I am making this harder on myself or not. Say on row 1, you have had to 2ktog a few times, on the next row you are doing all single knit. When you get to the 2ktog from the 1st row, do you treat that as a single loop and knit them separate or knit them as one?

Well, a K2tog on a previous row only produces one loop on the needle, so on the return row you would only work that one loop.

Thank you. I was getting ready to start a pattern and thought I better ask before getting into it. You can see I am new at this! Teaching myself is not easy.