On Therapy… Part Tres
Wherein the inevitable move to the suburbs ensues and Baby Number Dos Arrives
When we last left the riveting life story of my intrepid self, we had just given birth to our first baby, the lovely Marguerite Mae, I had started taking Zoloft and I gave up alcohol after 18 years (I was 32; do the math – it ain’t pretty). We were living and working in the up-and-coming West Loop area of Chicago. We had it all – a baby, a rapidly growing business in an amazing rehabbed 1800’s timber loft, another gorgeous 1,700 square foot loft with a panoramic view of the city of Chicago and two BMWs (man I loved that car). And yet I felt… numb? disconnected? overwhelmed? All of the above. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I was doing all the things!
Industrial Paint Mixing Vessel Lids | Carbit Paint Company, Chicago, Illinois | November 2013
I continued with my weekly therapy and monthly “med checks” with the psychiatrist. I still wasn’t exercising. I typically drove the four blocks to work; it’s hard to break the habits that were ingrained growing up in the suburbs. Sugar, combined with chocolate to form candy bars, quickly substituted for alcohol in the addiction department. Gotta feed the beast! I was torn between wanting to spend time with the baby and attending to the business where, due to my workaholism, I could always find something to do. A new baby puts a strain on any marriage and ours was no different. We were each doing our best to play our roles, although I know Amy was really struggling with the massive disruption to her life (the month long tuck-pointing project outside on our loft walls wasn’t much of a positive contribution either). Somewhere in there our landlords, who owned both loft buildings, sold to a condo company. So we bought our residence and moved the photo lab. The fun times continued apace.
Somewhere around this time, my mother really lost her marbles. To this day, I really don’t know what happened. It is quite likely that she suffered from bi-polar disorder for her whole life. It was never officially diagnosed but all the symptoms were there. She was often very depressed and she self-medicated by smoking a shit ton of cigarettes and drinking a lot of coffee and Coke. She and my dad liked to party as well. The apple don’t far fall from the tree. At one point, when I was a sophomore in high school, right after we moved to Florida, my dad sat us all down and excoriated us for not being “nicer” to our mother. Uh, Dad, ever hear of a mirror?
This completely bizarre “break” was likely a combo of menopause and the bipolar combined with 30+ years of marriage to a heavy drinker who lacked any ability to express his feelings in a meaningful way, unless it was rage. After Daughter Numero Uno’s birth, she really went sideways. To the point where Amy & I were concerned about leaving the baby in her care. On a flight to Kansas City, I vividly recall the having the revelation that my father had a drinking problem. It was if somebody whacked me across the side of the head with a 2×4 made of Truth. We finally decided, with our therapist, Billy’s counsel, to sever the relationship with them. This was a heart wrenching decision. The estrangement lasted about a year. During the reconciliation, I recall my father telling me he understood and that it happened because of my depression. Uh huh. Sure, Dad.
Just before our daughter’s second birthday, Amy was (understandably) itching to get out of the city. So we bought a house in River Forest, eight miles due west. It was, suffice it to say, a fixer-upper. Two years earlier and it would have been a bargain. We paid $500k and thought we could get by putting in another $60k, which inevitably became around $80k after I almost electrocuted myself on a mis-wired fixture and we realized how bad the wiring was. With the bathrooms gut-rehabbed, central a/c installed, the floors refinished, all new appliances purchased, and new paint throughout, we moved in on April 24, 2002 – our daughter’s second birthday.
River Forest is great place to live. We often refer to it as “Mayberry”. It’s a great blend of city and suburban living, with an annual Memorial Day parade that runs over a mile and draws thousands. However, I now had at least a 30 minute drive to and from the office. Running home for lunch was out. The good news is, the photo lab was still making good money, although, in hindsight, cracks were showing. So, I should be happy, right? Not so much.
About six months after moving in, we decided we couldn’t live with the layout of the existing kitchen after all aaaaand gosh wouldn’t it be great to have a finished basement? Thus began “Operation Money Hoover” (or should it be “Operation Money Dyson”?) which wound up sucking well in excess of $200k into its HEPA-filtered belly before it was finished. Oh, and wouldn’t this be a great time to embark upon a family expansion plan? Sure! My mother’s father died that summer, a which time we announced Amy was pregnant. Late fall 2002, the crew began demolishing the kitchen and basement, which entailed replacing all the three inch gravity fed heating pipes in the basement and removing the little servant staircase and switching the direction of the stairs to the basement. The path to renovator’s financial hell is paved with “We might as well…”
Deluded into thinking we could remain in the house during all this, after the third day of demo we were rapidly disabused of this notion. We decided newly pregnant women and 100 year old black dust hanging in the air isn’t the best combo if your objective is birthing a healthy baby. So we quickly found an expensive furnished rental with walls made of what might possibly have been origami paper two miles away in Oak Park. I honestly have blacked out the majority of memories of actually spending any time in that place. I do remember we woke to the neighbor’s alarm clock at 5:00am pretty much every morning. I’m not sure how Amy survived in the joint with a two year old, because we didn’t talk about it – or anything else really, but she did. She’s an amazing woman.
Resin Supply Pipes | Carbit Paint Company, Chicago, Illinois | November 2013
As the work on the house was drawing to a close, I decided I needed to make all the moldings to match the existing ones, because I was really good at distracting myself from important things such as running a growing business with six employees or spending time with my two year old. My grandfathers were both carpenters for their entire careers and my fondest memories are walking around on my Poppa’s workbench as a small child and making things. It’s in my blood. So I spent about $3,000 on a giant shaper and custom blades to cut the six or seven profiles needed for the three piece baseboards, crowns and window framing pieces. The place had to be perfect! No detail was too small. Later on, I would criticize myself for not thoroughly sanding the boards and for every imperfection.
One night in the middle March of 2003, as I was scrambling around installing molding in the basement, Amy asked me to make dinner for Maggie. I did and quickly returned to work. The construction was nearly done, although we had plywood for windows in the kitchen, dining room and basement and matching plywood countertops. A little while later, Amy said she didn’t feel so great. She called the doctor and I put Maggie to bed. I’m sure I trudged up there around 11:00 after Amy was already asleep and crashed. Wouldn’t want to have a conversation with my wife who was on the cusp of giving birth, would I?
At 4:15am or so, I heard Amy get up to go to the bathroom and asked what was up. “I think my water just broke.” That got my attention. Never underestimate the power of adrenaline to roust you from a deep comatose state. “Ok! Let’s go!” We hadn’t even packed a pair of underwear. “No,” she said. “I’m fine. It could still be awhile. I want to shower and have a cup of coffee. It might a couple days before I can do either.” I suggested we wake our amazing neighbor, Rita, who had agreed to stay with Maggie, and my mother, who was going to come down from Madison. Amy didn’t want to disturb anybody so early in the morning(!). Possessing the valuable self-preserving instinct of never arguing with a woman about to give birth, I assented. (The real story is that Amy’s favorite Ob/Gyn didn’t come on duty until later than morning.)
Not more than twenty minutes later, as she was stepping into the shower and I was fumbling around doing who knows what, I heard a blood-curdling scream come from the bathroom. There really isn’t a combination of letters that adequately express the noise I heard, so I’ll leave that sound effect to your imagination. “We gotta go NOW!!!“
Somehow, I woke Rita, got Amy in the car and headed to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, blithely passing at least three other hospitals with delivery rooms on the way where we could have (should have) stopped to squeeze out the munchkin. It was gray and drizzling and I think I hit 95mph on the Eisenhower, passing at least one police car on the way and yelling at my screaming wife, who was transitioning as we drove, that she better not have the damn baby in the car. Not my finest hour. I screeched to a stop in the front of the building and an off-duty nurse, who was leaving, accurately sensed that we might have a little crisis on our hands. She got a gurney. After showing up 8cm dilated and not giving birth in the elevator, the amazing Adeline Louise was delivered about twenty minutes after we pulled up out front.
One of the beauties of witnessing childbirth, especially when it is of your own offspring, is the incredible, unconditional love that washes over you. In this case, it even managed to push it’s way through the fog of 150mg + of Zoloft. And thank God for that because it topped up the fuel needed for my continued evolution and transformation, although it would take awhile to really ignite it.
As always, thanks for reading. Tune in next time for the march toward insolvency…
