The arrival of the obvious

It arrived with a ring of the doorbell, just about 8 p.m. I had been waiting for this day for more than a year. There was a time when I would come home and wonder if the thin envelope would simply be placed at my door, or delivered to my place of work.

For a long time, it was a day I openly dreaded: the day that Cherie would serve me with divorce papers.

I didn't dread this evening. No, I'd had more than a year, nearly two years to digest some information. The door to this path had been opened for a long time, and while I never campaigned for it, I always told her and others that a filing for divorce would be something that she would have to do, because I never would.

Oh, there are feelings of sadness. Not many, because I did my grieving a long time ago. It's not time to grieve any more. This gives our situation some clarity. Not much, but some. I hope it will eliminate all of the negative talk that has transpired between us over nearly the past two years. Much of it has subsided, of course, and a wise man like myself will hopefully continue to be wise and avoid any further negative words or confrontation, which would only add to the notion that I might be a person who can't handle this situation.

It does point to the fact that I need to be with my children now more than ever. I will get there soon. I must. There is a ticking clock now, and the ticking clock is not set by me, but by a court of law. Those kids need me in the personal and legal sense.

If I am there, I can better work to set an agenda that fits both my needs and the needs of my children. I can't do that from here.

As for me and Cherie, there isn't a me and Cherie anymore. Not in the form any of us would like, anyway. She is someone I will always love, but she does not see eye to eye with me on a number of fronts, including the commitment it must take to be both a wife and a mother. She can't be both. That's about as negative as I'm going to get. She doesn't know how to be both.

I feel strangely almost unemotional about the whole thing. Maybe that was the idea all along; that this would happen at a time and place when I felt no emotional attachment to a legal piece of paper. I don't. Not anymore. There is no sense in feeling emotional about something, especially when the other responsible party feels about as much emotion as you do.

More than a year ago, I filed for divorce, with tears in my eyes. It was not something I wanted to do. I cried at the courthouse, in the elevator, and to my friends. The file sits tucked away in a suitcase, where it will remain.

This file will be answered appropriately and in due time. But there is no reason to get emotional or fill anyone's head with lies and wild stories of things done and said in the course of our marriage, which actually, legally lasted eight years and change. I want to be with my children as much as possible, and be a father that they need most of all.

Cherie and I? Not going to happen. If it does, it must come from her. She knows where I am and has a key to the lock on the door. But I'm done forcing her to open it.