Twenty-one years ago I had to get a ride with my pregnant wife to the hospital on Scott Air Force Base, as she started to feels her contractions coming.  I had just turned twenty little more than two months before.  I had just joined the Air Force about six months before.  Within three years I would be divorced and living in Germany, a single parent at an age I wasn’t necessarily prepared for it.

Some people accuse me of favoritism with Robyn, that I treat her different than I do Bella and Tatiana.  In some ways, that’s true; in other ways, I think it’s unfair.  Because I probably committed what some people consider an ultimate sin for a parent--I was Robyn’s friend.  That’s not to say that I was her friend and not her parent.  There were many times I had to play the parent role, and Robyn spent more time between the ages of six and thirteen under house arrest groundings than probably both Bella and Tatiana will by the time they move out of the house.  But for a lot of the time, especially those years when we were in Germany alone, a time of which I am reminded now, because we are going to have to do a Christmas this year like we did then (except our tree will be much bigger; then it was essentially a tree you might put on a desk, and the presents eventually got bigger than the tree.

It’s a little hard to believe that she is 21.  At that age I was filing for divorce and trying to figure out how I was going to raise a toddler on my own.  It’s good to see that, while common sense has not been a trait that comes easily to either of us, she at least has a little more than me...but I am fairly happy with the lack of common sense I did have, because I got her out of it.

There are many things I want to do in my life.  One thing I know I want to do again is go on another trip with Robyn, just the two of us, like we did in the early part of this century, when we did that two-week, sixteen-state drive-a-thon, including the hunt for someplace to pee after the Grand Canyon, all the caves we went to...just being in the car and driving.  Or that trip to Denver to see Bruce Springsteen, Bill Cosby, a Rockies game (where I got half my face sunburned), and more tourist attractions along the way.  I have never had a travel companion as good as Robyn, and while I love my other children, I definitely miss those trips.

Happy 21st birthday, Yabbut.  I love you.

I have been accused about showing too much happiness about the divorce.  That’s the thing, though; I am not happy about it.  Not at all.  A divorce is a sign of failure, a sign that something about you is just not right, just not good enough.  So I am not in any way happy that I am divorcing...but since I am divorcing and cannot do anything about it (and based on how the marriage was, do not want to do anything about that), I am happy that it will soon be over and that I can move on with that part of my life.

The thing is, there is generally a reason for a marriage...sometimes it’s not a very good reason.  Sometimes even those marriages that start for a bad reason end up good.  And sometimes those marriages that start with good reasons turn bad.  I have a lot to be angry about in the marriage, but I think in the end, when you boil it down to the base elements (the problems with the marriage, not the way that it ended), it was just that we weren’t the people that we wanted to have us be for each other.  I don’t really have a problem not being the person she wanted to be--I won’t get into what I think that is, but I also wouldn’t be that person for anybody else, because it just doesn’t work for me.  It might for other people.  And I married her thinking of the person she could be, and that just never came to be.  And maybe she is okay with that, too.

When we were married, she brought up a few times the collages I have on the walls, some of which included my first ex-wife and at least one girlfriend.  I didn’t have them to rub in her face or anything; they were just a part of my life and I am not the type of person who just turns away from a part of life just because something ended.  Those times, those people--they make me who I am today.  And I’m happy with that guy.  For good or ill, I have to thank them for leading me here.

And I have to thank Melissa, too.  The last couple years of the marriage have not been good (obviously, or why would we be here?), but that is not to say that I don’t remember the good just because of the bad that has led us here.

I remember how you went out of your way when you first visited me to change the recipe because you knew that Robyn didn’t like mushrooms.  So instead of using cream-of-mushroom, you used cream-of-chicken soup, and it didn’t really click in your head until too late and until Robyn had already had seconds that, since she was a vegetarian at the time, that probably wasn’t the best decision.  I remember you introducing me to Elfs at Christmas (yeah, I’m spelling it that way for this).  I remember that time at Senor Frogs, when the waitress twisted my nipples and we walked back to the cruise ship, all the time with me wearing that silly balloon hat. 

I remember the nights after Dane, when I held you.  And even when that wasn’t enough.

There are pictures I have taken off the wall--our wedding pictures; that one of us in Hawaii.  But there are other ones still up there, even though they are just another part of the collage that is my life.  Because, yes, I have not been happy the last few years of my life; but that doesn’t mean that the first part there weren’t moments of great joy or great memories. 

So thank you.  I can not say I can forgive you for everything--don’t know if I will ever get over mid-August, not because it happened, but because of how it happened.  But lack of forgiveness does not equal hate.  Hate has fallen away, shaken off, and all that’s left are parts of the collage.