Leaving the Cocoon

Before the Blue House, there was the cocoon.

In February of 2010, I signed a lease for a 2 bedroom apartment in a vintage Lincoln Square 2-flat.  After a decade of marriage, and an additional three years of kidding ourselves, I was leaving our cozy, single family home in Northcenter and moving north into single-dad, rental solitude where I would stay for 8 years, until I was ready for the blue house.

This isn't the post where I delve into the marriage and  dissect how it went wrong. This is the post where I talk about the role that this apartment played in my transition.  In 2010 I was disoriented.  Still technically married, I was unsure how to navigate the new waters of parenthood and child support and being single.  I was sad and angry and in debt.  I needed a shelter - a place for my daughters and I to be safe and figure out how to re-construct my life as I became technically un-married. This apartment was my cocoon.

When I moved into the apartment in 2010, I approached it like a homeowner.  I had been rehabbing our old house for the last 11 years, and I still approached my living space as something I could change and build myself.  I hung curtains and, over time, switched out electrical and plumbing fixtures.  The very first thing I did - even before I bought furniture - was change out the light switch cover in the girls' shared bedroom. The whole apartment was pretty austere at the beginning: dark hardwood and cold flourescent fixtures.  I switched out the light switch plate to try (in some small way) to make their room more theirs.  It was subtle, and probably more of a subconscious clue, but it was a start.

After I had been there a few years I started hanging the art wall - a scotch-taped menagerie of my daughters' elementary school artwork. I also started hanging family portraits everywhere. I was starting to assert my identity as someone other than the husband.

This apartment was more than a home to me, it was more like a hideout. A place where I could get shelter, and avoid the social entanglements that came with being a full-fledged, home owning, member of society. I transformed pretty dramatically inside this cocoon. Physically, I lost 40 lbs - I quit drinking for a year and took up swimming. Later, when I had lost enough weight, I switched to running. Eventually that would take me to the Chicago marathon.  I dug myself out of debt, and started on the road to the blue house.

To become a butterfly, a caterpillar first digests itself. But certain groups of cells survive, turning the soup into eyes, wings, antennae and other adult structures 

-Scientific American

So... I'm not sure if I digested myself, but there's not much left of the caterpillar I once was.  What's interesting is this: the cells that turn into wings, antennae and eyes were all there in the caterpillar's body when he entered the cocoon.  But he just couldn't use them until he had almost destroyed himself completely in the safety of the cocoon.