When a new apartment marks a new phase of life
I moved to SOMA in the fall of 2020. My husband, my 10-month-old daughter and I made our home in a twobedroom apartment above Sabatino’s pizza. I loved it immediately. In the front, the scent of dough and garlic paired with the flow of cars and people on Valley Street. In the back, the east branch of the Rahway River wove through each day. I stopped to gaze at it as I crossed the bridge on Jefferson Avenue, taking in how high or low the water was that day. I never tired of looking for an egret.
I felt held and protected, in a time when that felt so essential. On a personal level, I was finding my footing in parenthood. On a societal and global level, well, we all know where we were in 2020. My family has since moved. We’re closer to downtown South Orange now. We added a member to the family. We craved a bit more space and a bit more function.
Although our new apartment serves us so well, I miss my old apartment. I miss being able to say I live above a pizza place. I miss the Little Free Library down the street. The footbridges in Memorial Park. The pickleball, tennis and basketball players. The way I had five different options for the perfect walk around the block.
I typically love change. The sense of possibility. The energy of a horizon. Perhaps that’s what I’ve been missing since we moved. We’re in an apartment where, if we decide to, we could stay for a very long time. Years. We have enough space. We have a dishwasher. We have a washer and a dryer in the basement and a garage to store all our strollers. I feel grounded, and it feels strange. It occurs to me that I might be describing … adulthood.
I didn’t realize that moving would be the thing that would make me feel that I’ve truly and definitively arrived at this stage of my life. After all, I’m 38 years old. There’s evidence to support that I’ve been an adult for quite some time. I just never fully felt it until now. My husband and I met in New York City when I was in my early 20s. We were happy struggling artists bouncing from one artistic opportunity to one financial crisis after another and back again. He: an actor. Me: a writer. We lived with roommates in Harlem off the last stop of the 3 train. Then, one of those pesky financial crises landed us for a time in his parents’ basement in New Jersey. Then, we got married, packed up our car and our cat (who we’d adopted from one of our roommates in Harlem) and drove clear across the country to Hollywood. (Okay, Pasadena.)
If you couldn’t tell, I could wax romantic about any of our shortlived homes, including apartments that, while big on character and charm, also came with various frustrations and even dangers. Everything from on-street parking that resulted in cars plowing straight into our parked car as we slept, to tiny quarters that necessitated converting our walk-in closet into our walk-in bed. At best, it was annoying. At worst, it was bed bugs.
There is a particular type of stress that is unique to young adulthood. It is quite different from the stressors of adulthood proper. There are new frustrations and new dangers. Also, new joys. New opportunities and horizons.
I’m still adjusting to my new apartment. One of my favorite things about it is the bay window in our living room. When I look out of it, I can see clear on to the South Mountain Reservation. Another amazing feature, our downstairs neighbors. We truly must be terrible to live beneath. Chairs scraping, children screaming, big and little feet stomping up and down the hallway. We are a cacophony. Meanwhile, our neighbors only express warmth and gratitude about our very presence. The feeling is mutual.
For the first time in my life, I’ve planted perennials in my yard. For the f irst time, I have a yard and a sense that I might be here long enough to see the daisies and the lavender return year after year. I’m still compiling my catalog of all the things I love about my new apartment and my new neighborhood. It’s a different kind of love, I think. Dare I say, a grown-up love. Either way, I’m happy to be here.
Maribeth Theroux is a writer, a poet, and a grown-up. She never tires of looking for egrets. You can find her writing at poemtoday.substack.com
Comments