At home, my extended period of recovery is wearing thin. My wife and daughter are happy to have me back, but after nearly a year, they've begun wondering when I'm going to be done healing.
Truth is, I was feeling good, caught up on a year's worth of lost sleep, by about Labor Day—a few months after the end of a year-long stint as the co-host of the Morning Show (then Vannah and Collins) on WHMP, 1400 AM, in Northampton. Since then, I've been milking my year in radio for all—really, far more than—it was worth. Take out the trash? Sorry, I'm still not quite 100 percent. My family isn't pushing me. They see how happy I am.
After spending a year in which I awoke at 4 a.m. and worked straight through until 6 or 7 p.m every day, walking wounded all weekend before doing it all over again, I still feel sheer joy at waking three hours later, sipping coffee and hanging out with my daughter before heading off to work. I still get giddy at being able to stay up to see the ends of Red Sox games, to check the late news or see the Daily Show. A year after leaving the show, I still feel newly liberated, as if the shackles came off only yesterday.
I'd joined the WHMP team mainly as a lark. After more than 20 years as a journalist, during which I'd appeared many times on TV and radio as a guest and occasional fill-in host, I got an offer from WHMP to actually pay me to do 3 and half hours of radio a day. Despite any reservation I might have had adding 20-plus hours to an already busy work week, I jumped at the opportunity.
My wife and daughter were supportive. At first I think they were simply tickled to hear my voice on the same station we listened to for Sox games and school closings. With my wife in the midst of starting her own business, we also saw my small weekly radio stipend as a much-needed source of revenue. The radio show, however, quickly became far more than an ego-stoking bit of moonlighting. It became the activity around which our family organized each day, every weekend, every holiday. Having been deeply involved in every aspect of raising my daughter before, I suddenly began seeing myself as an absentee parent. Worse, when I was at home, I wasn't any fun, declining, with frightening frequency and unexpected ease, my daughter's every invitation to play catch, go fishing, ride bikes.
But I loved being on the radio. I loved bantering with my co-host, Chris Collins. I loved the spontaneity of radio, which is largely missing from the print media.
In hindsight, I might have been a bit too spontaneous. I might have offered my off-the-cuff opinions a bit too forcefully, with too little polish. Just after Independence Day 2008, the management at WHMP decided to do away with its two-man morning show and my nascent radio career came to an end.
At first, I was disappointed, embarrassed at whatever personal failure my exit from WHMP might signal. But within a few weeks, I began to see the silver lining.
Going into it, I'd been cocky. I'd considered myself a hardworking, energetic person. I'd come of age in an era when it was accepted that successful people are people who simply work harder and longer than unsuccessful people. I romanticized the idea of spending long, uninterrupted hours focused entirely on my chosen craft, supported by a loving family who stopped relying on me for much other than a paycheck. Besides, I knew lots of people who claimed to work 80-plus hours per week, and I was sure I was as tough as any of them.
Now, a year into my recovery, my perspective has changed. Maybe some people can work 70 or 80 hours a week—having tried it, I'm very dubious of anyone who claims to work 100 hours per week—without its being unhealthy and ultimately counterproductive, but I can't. I thought I could. In fact, I thought I was handling the grind perfectly well. But workaholism and sleep deprivation are insidious. It was only after I stopped working every waking hour that I saw the enormity of the sacrifice, not just for me, but for the people I love.
It's been a year now. The family budget may be a bit tighter without my second job, but a sense of balance has returned to our lives. One of these days, I might even feel good enough to take out the trash.
