A light saber. That's what she wanted. Just like on Star Wars.
She unwrapped her present and started waving it around, flicking it out and doing yoga poses with a waving wand light saber.
Hazel turns five today. She is shiny-eyed and tall and strong - a warrior woman with blue eyes and (her own words) golden hair.
*
When Hazel was born I was in the midst of alcoholism. Smiling and patiently waiting through the times when we needed to see the doctor - knowing I would be not too far away from bring drunk again and back to normality.
Even the day she was born, a champion effort by her mother, my wife, (and me there in hospital greens counting down the time to get back home to start drinking syrupy shiraz until collapsing on the lounge room floor) I was distracted by drinking.
A slippery perfectly new human in my arms and fuck me if I wasn't thinking about getting out of the theater and back to the numbing safety of a wine glass...
*
That life has changed. Hazel is now a vibrant young girl with nothing holding her back except an alcoholic father.
For now, it is my responsibility to be accountable for her, to introduce her to the world and share my favorite things. So we can have a constructive, positive relationship that gives her the best chance of making the most of the opportunities that life presents her.
But she must know, at some point, that I am alcoholic. I want her to know - she must sort of notice that what she used to call "Daddy's wine" isn't around any longer. And that she doesn't get caught in the crossfire of when I used to be drunk and have to defend being drunk as somehow OK.
So happy birthday - and here's to being all too aware of the dastardly genetic inheritance you have been gifted and how it has brought us all a step closer to self realization and simply accepting life for what it is and forgiving ourselves and others for who we are.
I am grateful for my daughter and urge myself to be kind enough to let her only know me as a sober, wise 'old man'. Not so much the fumbling fake sober, where I would be hiding my drunkenness and drinking, but a real light sober, which is I guess, getting close to the best I can be.
She unwrapped her present and started waving it around, flicking it out and doing yoga poses with a waving wand light saber.
Hazel turns five today. She is shiny-eyed and tall and strong - a warrior woman with blue eyes and (her own words) golden hair.
*
When Hazel was born I was in the midst of alcoholism. Smiling and patiently waiting through the times when we needed to see the doctor - knowing I would be not too far away from bring drunk again and back to normality.
Even the day she was born, a champion effort by her mother, my wife, (and me there in hospital greens counting down the time to get back home to start drinking syrupy shiraz until collapsing on the lounge room floor) I was distracted by drinking.
A slippery perfectly new human in my arms and fuck me if I wasn't thinking about getting out of the theater and back to the numbing safety of a wine glass...
*
That life has changed. Hazel is now a vibrant young girl with nothing holding her back except an alcoholic father.
For now, it is my responsibility to be accountable for her, to introduce her to the world and share my favorite things. So we can have a constructive, positive relationship that gives her the best chance of making the most of the opportunities that life presents her.
But she must know, at some point, that I am alcoholic. I want her to know - she must sort of notice that what she used to call "Daddy's wine" isn't around any longer. And that she doesn't get caught in the crossfire of when I used to be drunk and have to defend being drunk as somehow OK.
So happy birthday - and here's to being all too aware of the dastardly genetic inheritance you have been gifted and how it has brought us all a step closer to self realization and simply accepting life for what it is and forgiving ourselves and others for who we are.
I am grateful for my daughter and urge myself to be kind enough to let her only know me as a sober, wise 'old man'. Not so much the fumbling fake sober, where I would be hiding my drunkenness and drinking, but a real light sober, which is I guess, getting close to the best I can be.