I went out for the first time in a long time last night.
One of my all-time favorite bands, was in town and despite having spent the entire morning on assignment two-and-a-half-hours away, my wife shouldered the burden of putting both kids to sleep while dad went out with one of his best pals and knocked back a few ice-cold Shiner Bocks.
I asked Emily again and again if she was sure it was cool, ready at a moment’s notice to text my friend and tell him I had to stick around to help out.
He’s raised two kids. He’d understand.
But Emily was unwavering.
“You need a night out,” she whispered in our darkened bedroom while the baby suckled on her boob and the big kid splayed across her lap, barely awake.
“Go,” she said. “We’re good.”
As so I went. And I kept it reined in. And I only had a few beers. And I somehow got to sleep at around midnight. And the baby didn’t wake up all night. And I slept till seven.
And yet, as I type this, despite all the sleep and a reasonable intake of Shiners, my brain is still a bit fuzzy, my eyes feel like sandpaper, and my mouth is desert-dry.
My patience is shot and therefore my temper isn’t nearly where it needs to be in order to deal with two kids under the age of four.
Because if there’s anything I’ve learned in the few short years I’ve been a father, it’s that patience is one of the keystones of capable parenting.
I used to drink a lot.
A shitload would probably be a more accurate way to frame it.
At various times, I drank to party, I drank to numb pain, I drank because it was very much part of my profession. I drank because that was often the only thing to do in the interminable hours between soundcheck and showtime. And even on nights when you “weren’t drinking” on tour, you were still having two or three PBRs.
But I never drank to drink. That is, I never drank because I liked drinking.
Because I never did.
And I still don’t. I don’t really like beer. I don’t like most liquors. I don’t like hangovers.
What I do like, what I absolutely love, is getting fucked up with my friends.
And while we didn’t quite get fucked up at the Dino show, we had a good time, desperately needed after a year-and-a-half without live music, that which has been so much of my lifeblood for most of the last three decades.
But with two little kids at home, getting fucked up with my friends isn’t really something I can do with ease.
It requires a good bit of pre- and post-planning. It requires a wife who will not only shoulder the nighttime routine but recognizes that her partner may not be on his A game the following morning.
I realized this shortly after our son was born.
When he was barely three months old, one of my favorite little rock and roll dives in Chapel Hill announced it was closing*.
It was a place that had supported my band when we started touring; a place that gave me a job when we first moved to town; a place whose address I have tattooed above my elbow (a much longer story for a much different time).
Just as she did last night, Emily told me to pick a night during their final week to go and enjoy one final rabble in the little subterranean club where I could barely stand up straight (due to the low ceiling. Not the booze.. but now that I mention it…)
She’d handle the baby all night and for most of the next morning.
And even though she did virtually everything, the following morning was one of the more arduous days of my life.
Because a three-month-old doesn’t give a fuck how late you were out or how many shots you had. A three-month-old doesn’t control his volume in accordance to the pulsing throb of your temples. A three-month-old doesn’t give a fuck about anything beyond being dry, rested, and full.
“I’m not drinking again till he’s thirty,” I joked that morning. I was only half kidding.
At this point in my life, drinking is a pure profit/loss analysis.
Is the fun tonight going be worth the agony of tomorrow?
The answer is usually “no.”
But sometimes—especially when one of your favorite bands of all time is coming through town and one of your closest pals wants to go knock a few back with you—it is.
*In the eleventh hour, The Cave was saved and is still open today. Someday, when the kids are a bit older, I’ll go with my pal and we’ll get fucked up together.