04 August 2003

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

I renewed my apartment lease for another year today. I�ve had quite a few loved ones question that decision. As I am looking for a new job, and most of the nibbles coming in are a good distance from where I live, many wonder why I would saddle myself with another year-long lease here when I am unsure of where I want to be next August.

For me, the answer is pretty simple.

I love my apartment. I love the town in which I live. I love what is available to me within an hour�s drive. I honestly feel settled here.

I love my neighbors.

My first apartment out of college and after living with my parents was nice. I had a roommate, nice furniture, decent parking, rent that was not crazy. After a long while the roommate got married and I needed to find somewhere else to live. This was August, 2001. I pretty much blindly jumped into an apartment without asking the right questions. While the apartment itself was nice, everything else was not. Most notably on the �not nice� list - my downstairs neighbor. An elderly, housebound, chain-smoking woman who left her TV on all night and never cracked a window.

Couple the Stinky Lady with neighbors who were prone to drag race in the parking lot outside my window at all hours of the night, and I was glad for my lease to come up for renewal. I was also grateful to be able to tell the kooky and nosey rental agent lady to go jump. So off I went to find an apartment with a few more amenities, a pet friendly policy and affordable rent. I found my Brigadoon.

My building is tucked away in the woods with the view out of my kitchen window being a stream, the view out of my living room sliders the woods surrounding the parking lot, and the only late night noise the gentle hum of the TV next door. I am currently formulating a plan that will allow me to take the hardwood floors in my apartment with me to my next home. Most pleasing of all, however, are my neighbors.

New Jersey saw a great deal of snow this winter. We had a storm at least every week, most of them with considerable drifts and whatnot left behind for digging and plowing. Marry that with my breaking my ankle in January, and you can see how difficult my winter most likely was. Many a morning I would wake early, hearing the rambling of the radio announcer as he tripped over delays and snow closings of schools on the air, to find my car being kindly, and without a show, dug out by my neighbors.

Neighbors who saw the waddling girl with fiberglass and plaster slapped on her leg, struggling with groceries or her mail, offered help. Packages and flowers that were left were signed for and cheerfully lugged in to my second floor walk-up by the sweet man three doors over and the cute boy downstairs and to the right.

Most wonderful of all is the lady downstairs from me, who sings hymns in her shower on Sunday mornings, who cooks the most delightful smelling things all week, who puts up with the sound of Tard and Tubby doing wind-sprints and �WWF Smack Down� over her head daily. When I am away for the weekend, she thoughtfully takes my newspapers in so that people don�t think I am gone. When the USPS leaves packages in front of my door on our shared porch, she takes them in when it rains or when I am not home by dark. When my car had not moved in a few days, she rang the bell to make sure I was ok (I was nursing the broken leg) and offered to pick up things for me at the grocery store. It�s a nice little family. It�s home.

I am happy that I will be here another year. I�ve found that when something, anything, is right in your life you should embrace it and not let it go. The way I see it, this is the right place for me. All else will fall into place.