|
nonfiction - Stationhill.com |
|
| Next | Back | Home | Fiction | Non-Fiction | Poems | Book Excerpts | |Travel Essays| Religious |
A Toast to Sobriety by Toby Parlet When I was a callow man, a decade and some odd years ago, I was a bit of a drinker. If you have heard the expression, “drinks like a fish” then you are getting closer to the image I portrayed. I think if I were a fish, I would have drowned. I thought I had and knew it all. I was young and dumb, as they say. I was in my twenties, enlisted in the military, and traipsing the world. There are famous, fashionable, and frightening places that I have frequented that I could not even begin to enumerate about. I wish I could depict to you the historic museums and art in Paris, the Berlin wall in Germany, Big Ben in London, the canals of Venice, the windmills of Holland, and the beautiful Mosques, vast deserts, and pure black nights in places like Iraq, Kuwait, and Qatar. However besides the black nights in the desert, I never saw the aforementioned famous sites. So the only stories you will get out of me are of the various bars and clubs I found, frequented, and fell out of. I could write maybe half a page of six years’ time spent, or squandered, living what I believed was a fast, furious, and fun life. In this surreal time spent frequenting groggeries, I met hundreds of so called friends. Most nights ended in a blur but on the rare occasion that I was unlucky enough to have designated driver duty, I would go to bed feeling like I had been a baby sitter for my soused cronies. If ever I found myself in need of help and reached out to one of those hundreds of peers whom I thought were friends, I discerned quickly how few friends I had. To this day there is but one whose name I recollect, and only on a rare occasion talk to I will only refer to her as ex-wife. I can say with veracity that there is only one good thing that came from this period in my life. My first child was born, and much to my surprise, within a short number of days I was no longer out gallivanting around inebriated. To be honest, the notion of having a child of my own to take care of and be responsible for was a sobering thought. I had no idea how literally this would play out. It didn’t take long before I was once again frequenting the same establishments night after night. However instead of wearing thin spots into the bar stools in the pubs, now I was wearing tracks into the linoleum at the local grocer. Night after night, it never failed, it was rush to get a new binky, diapers, or formula. Who knew that a babe, who sleeps nearly twenty hours a day, would need so much? Over the years we have traveled, as much as possible with our little moppet, to many galvanizing and beautiful places. I am favored enough now to have revisited some of the places I have been before but never really saw. It’s amazing how sobriety allows you to stop, or at least pause, and enjoy the beauty that encompasses the world. I have been to the Louvre and stood speechless staring at exquisite beauty like the Mona Lisa, and the Venus de Milo. I climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower, I walked around the Arc de Triomphe, I rode a gondola through the canals in Venice, and I hand fed birds in St. Mark’s Square. I have not traveled as much as I would prefer in the past half decade due to the facts of life we all face such as money, occupation, and the birth of two more tots. Instead of traveling and seeing many places, I have stayed in one spot and been able to meet many faces. Through the children’s school, sporting events, medical appointments, and extracurricular activities, I have again met and befriended a large amount of people. Of course this time I can actually name these newfound friends. Now if I find myself in need of a helping hand I know I can count on any one of them. The daunting task of rearing children can at times prostrate the best of parents. The lessons learned and memories made watching a child grow and discover new things are a reward that makes it all worthwhile. In my opinion the drudgery parents are accosted with can be enough to drive any sane person to want a drink. Toby
M. Parlet, age 31, contact:
toby.parlet@yahoo.com
|