D-Rod

That's your oh-so-classy New York Post headline this morning, as the world gets back to the workaday life and ritual humiliation of one Alex Rodriguez, a power-hitting infielder of some note for the New York Yankees. Get ready for $30 million a year in shadenfreude... and maybe this is just me getting soft in my old age, but I'm wondering the following question: why does anyone want to read about this?

Here, let me demonstrate. The first Shooter Wife was an undiagnosed depressive who didn't finish college. She was miles out of my league, looks-wise, whip-smart, funny, an outstanding cook, and more than fun in the sack. It didn't work out for a million reasons. Here are the ones that come to mind right away: I couldn't make her happy, she changed her mind about wanting kids after we got married, we fought over money, being with someone who is depressed is utterly maddening, I hated my jobs and she hated hers, and loads more that I'm not going to talk about here. We didn't really treat each other very well, and after what seemed like an unending spiral of life getting worse, I asked her to leave. She did.

Now, does that make you feel better about reading this, or are you mentally tapping your foot as you wait for me to get back to sports? Better yet, does it make you seem a little sordid?

My divorce was, by most independent measures, relatively painless. We called 1-800-DIVORCE and paid $149. There were no kids, no real property to divide, no reason to ever see or talk to each other ever again. I ate the debts we racked up, and on some level, I'm still paying for that, but in the long run, my rock band was a heck of a lot more expensive. The whole marriage was done in just a couple of years. I don't often think about her, and I imagine she doesn't think about me. By the scale of such things, I imagine what we went through was about 1% of what the Rodriguez Experience will be.

And yet, this. For months afterward, I walked around in an unshakable dark cloud of unhappiness, without the ability to even taste food or care about anything. In short order, I got fired from a job I hated and replaced it with another, and had to move to a crappy part of town and take on an odorous roommate. It took me years and a life-changing class to lose the depression and the certainty that every relationship I was ever going to have was going to end just like my marriage, and that I deserved what I was getting.

Even to this day, it burns that there is someone in this world who I once loved to the best of my ability, who I stood in front of hundreds of people and declared my love for, who I really did think I was going to grow old with. It's a scar that only heals to a point, and remember... this is a "clean" divorce.

Now, I don't presume to know what Mr. Rodriguez is going through today. Presumably, money makes everything easier, and it's not like he'll be unable to find someone to distract himself with.

But I do know this; he now gets to be a more or less absent father (even more than the usual transient baseball player existence) for the rest of his life, with any number of people getting to read (at length) the sordid details of his life with his ex as they fight over money.

I'm not sure there's a person on this earth that I'd wish that on.

I also know that, as a father, I'd sooner take a bullet than lose access to my kids.

So if you're chortling with amusement over this, do me a favor. Take a look at the mirror, and ask yourself if you really feel good about this aspect of yourself.

And if you do, get help, a life, and a heart. The order isn't important.