Apartment Awesome

Wow, this weekly opportunity to spread the Apartment Awesome story has been well, awesome!  I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that part yet-that my new and fabulous residence has been dubbed Apartment Awesome.  Hopefully the weeks to come will afford me many chances to explain why...

      It’s a muggy August afternoon in Budd Lake and I’m in a state of shock.  I’ve just been told that my seemingly endless search for handicap-accessible housing has come to a marvelous end! In a few months time I would be moving to Allendale, in Bergen County.  I hadn’t heard of the town but then again, it's super small.  The extent of my Bergen County knowledge was limited to a few visits to Mahwah to visit a friend from Rutgers and a few horrifying experiences with the perpetually angry parking lot otherwise known as Route 17.  So I knew I was headed into mostly uncharted waters.  Ask anyone who’s ever known me-I am a big wuss when it comes to trying new things and this was a VERY new thing. But I was on a “come on, Liana, change your life-what have you got to lose” roll so I tried not to freak out.  The biggest flaw in my moving plan was knowing I wouldn’t be able to bring my two cats to the new apartment.  I cried all the time knowing I would have to leave my furry pals.  They're really great constants in a life that’s otherwise prone to fluctuation.  However, I knew my need for reliable housing would have to trump my feline devotion. 

      Information began trickling in.  Each passing week brought me closer to the reality of true independence.  I had only seen pictures of the complex on the Bergen County United Way website. ( www.bergenunitedway.org ) I maintained an increasingly towering pile of paperwork, all the while doing my best to maintain some semblance of order.  Eventually I bought several folders (different colors of course) and wrote the contents of each folder on the front.  Not the most sophisticated system but it worked for me.  My sister helped me gut my closet-arguably the best part of moving, forcing yourself to keep only that which REALLY matters! 

     In late September I was feeling particularly anxious about forfeiting my familiar but stagnant life for a better yet unfamiliar one so I decided to take a drive to see what Allendale was really like.  How thrilled I was to arrive in a beautiful town that seemed very much like Budd Lake, but urban-adjacent.  I drove alongside a beautiful brook and past Crestwood Lake which looked both peaceful and fun.  Then I saw the construction fencing bordering what was soon to officially be Crescent Commons.  The architecture was beyond beautiful.  I could not believe what I was seeing, it was so much more wonderful than I’d been hoping for! I couldn’t get past the fence so I parked in the driveway and just stared.  You know when something goes so right in your life, so meant to be, that it’s like the sun is shining on only you?  That’s what overcame me right at that moment.  Infatuation-not for a person, but for a possibility.  Like falling in love with your future.