Not Over Till It's Over

Writing here for the first time in practically 8 months, it's a bit like starting from scratch. And honestly, I can't write in the old voice, because I'm not that person anymore. I'm a "revised" human being, cobbled together like a child's plasticene model of a functional lady. To be clear: I'm very angry. I'm whatever comes after exhausted. I'm disappointed in humanity. I'm still carrying my metaphoric boulder up my metaphoric hill only it feels real, the constant weight of moving. It's been so un-fun for so long that I can barely remember unfettered enjoyment. There's always a caveat - the goddamn project and its endless goddamn problems. (Pls. note - I hate the project with the power of a million suns but I do not hate the house or the husband. In fact, I love them both more than ever.)

Don't feel bad for me. My emerging self is amazingly functional, if mostly miserable. Things that would have thrown me into a state of utter chaos, 18-months ago - now they merely gut-punch in a momentary way. In fact, it appears I've been waiting all of my life to apply my anxiety to something truly deserving, I just didn't know it. :-)

In November, after months of being dicked around, I had no crew, no plan forward. My house was a disaster-zone. At my lowest ebb, I didn't so much speak, as squeak, shrill with disbelief. I could not imagine how things could have come to this (I did SO much fucking research) or that things could ever get better. I actually lost all imagination because it seemed like a liability. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. For the most part, I still can't. (Don't worry, I have adequate caloric intake from alcohol alone. And on the topic of honesty, you cannot go through this kind of experience without a spate of functional alcoholism.) Somehow I get my ass out of bed every morning and perform my full-spectrum modern-woman function. Somehow we've cobbled together the wherewithal, albeit in a state of shock, to get from there to here. But it's so not over.

(Subject of another post: The brick veneer on the front of the house exterior, always ugly, has decided to help us by falling off under the weight of carelessness and heavy construction. So, this job ain't done by a long shot. Next up - trashing the front porch and garden to rip off the front of the house and repoint the original brick. Also we'll need to hazmat-demolish the front/original part of the basement which, after my pipes burst this winter, is a den of mold. But, as row-house dwellers, we have to finish the hardscaping in the back yard before doing this because we need a way to leave and enter the house.)

This is the part of the story where I dwell on my husband, a mere mortal-turned-super hero whose cover is blown. He works 14 hour days, every day, running a business (where he treats everyone with respect) and GC-ing our renovation (where he also treats everyone with respect, though rarely is that sentiment returned in action). Obviously, I think he's a really cool person or I wouldn't have married him but I could not have predicted his level of competence in the face of near-disaster. I am blown-away by his efficacy and his endurance. He has spreadsheets of hundreds of columns - project plans and financial tables - which he monitors daily. He's on the phone with one trade at 7am and another at 11pm. He's constantly resolving serious issues that no one else can come up with a solution to address (even though those issues shouldn't have occurred in the first place). Eventually, I do intend to post a room-by-room inventory of changes to the house, for posterity. When you see how much we've altered, I imagine you'll think 2 things: Lord, how did he keep it all together and Lord, how much is all that shit costing. The answer to both of these things is, I have no fucking idea.

OK, I have no idea about the keeping it together. The money part I know. One simply shouldn't dwell overly. I mean, unless we start to earn more money, and I like to think this is feasible - or come into a sizeable inheritance - I'm not retiring early. But I am so incredibly fortunate. Many others would have lost everything under these circumstances. I've been given the opportunity - the choice - to spend money in this way. There's no more fairness to this than my hideous luck on the construction-front. When you spin the wheel, you get what you get. At some moment everyone has to decide whether to throw in the towel, or to double-down with investment on every level, and the essence of commitment is commitment. We are putting ourselves into this home, viscerally, dozens of times a day. We are this place - as much as everyone who has preceded us over 5 generations. And I consider those people in every choice I make.

The original owner was a municipal public servant in the early days of Toronto. The house was practically suburban in those years. He had 3 children, the youngest of whom died days before Christmas, at the age of 2 (and very probably in my home, though there's no sense of it that hovers). Shortly thereafter the family moved out and rented the property for many years. The husband died before they opted to retake possession. His wife sold it to the next people and she moved to Kensington Market after re-marrying...

Then there was the woman who owned it in the 1900s, for longer than any other owners to date - though we're fast catching up. It had originally belonged to her husband but he died young so she lived there with her daughters, who were rather modern ladies, all working downtown. This woman lived to her 80s and eventually the property was sold. The sisters moved to a house a few doors north.

The peeps who lived there before the couple from whom we bought the place were "the crazy old ones". They painted everything pink. Something tells me they were hoarders. We still hear stories from long-time residents (including our attached neighbours) about how the frail, elderly lady once ran down the block - wielding an axe - to get rid of a door canvasser. To her credit, apparently she warned the guy first. They were ancient yet climbed out the attic windows regularly to clean them - not that anything else was clean. They tarped the entire backyard, we understand, because they didn't like light.

Those from whom we purchased, entrusted the house to us though there was a bidding war and we were not the highest bidders. Partly, that's because we riskily agreed to take immediate possession, despite our ownership of another property, and they'd both managed to score tenure at UCLA in their respective professorial fields starting immediately. Partly - I like to believe - it's because we sent them a message assuring them that we would care for the home and become its stewards, explaining that we'd offered as much money as we possibly could. They left us the curtains in the front room, the ones made by his mother, from fabric she'd snuck out of Germany as she fled the death camps during WWII.

This home was shaped by those lives. It's shaped by ours. Now, when I nighttime property-stalk (I'm discreet but if you leave your blinds open I'm gonna look!), I can't peek at those properties in the same way. Before, I wanted all of the sexy Victorian homes. Now I cannot imagine living somewhere other than my home because I have no investment elsewhere. I'm not in those floors and walls and windows. I wasn't the source of their vision.

Every 5 minutes I tell someone I am never doing this again. (When Scott is with me, he says scary shit like: You'll forget about the misery and I really want to put in a coach house studio someday, or (worse still): You know there's realistically another year of renovation remaining once we actually move back in. Mind you, I can't say I regret it. In every moment I'm reminded of my firey desire, my fortitude. And honestly, I fucking love how it is coming together. I'm the only one I need to satisfy and I am largely very satisfied. This has contextualized my irrepressible confidence and reminded me of its value.

If you want to do a major reno and have fun, there's only one solution IMO (and I stand by this, though many of you may counter): Be fucking rich. Way richer than I am. Way richer than you are (unless you happen to be super wealthy, in which case you have my congratulations). You need to be able to rent a house and not worry about how much it costs when your project triples in time span. You need to be able to comfortably afford to pay for your reno twice in the event that you get fucked over by people. You need money to afford the team of people who will help you to litigate against the people who may fuck you over. You need to be able to take time off work without pay (or maybe just not bother with a job cuz you don't need one). You need to have the money to fly away on a trip when everything becomes soul-crushing, and it will, even if you're a zillionaire. You need not to worry about how every cost overrun may impact your ability to fund your kid's out of province university experience (even as your mind is blown and you are insanely grateful that your kid got into the best university in Canada).

If money is no object, you'll get from here to there pretty unscathed, I hazard to guess. Otherwise, hope to heaven that your health holds up and you come to love your partner more than you did in the first place. Hope that you have the visceral memory of a mouse. Hope that you love what you create to such an extent that the punishing journey of its achievement is an eventual afterthought. Hope that you become more, because of pain, than you would have been otherwise. And take the long view. Cuz really, there's no alternative.