Twelve Twenty-One
It’s moving day. All of my belongings are in organized disarray and I’m completely over it. If I could, I’d just walk out of here clutching my MacBook with my Ray Bans on and leave all the rest of this crap behind. Why is this process so hard? Between navigating New York apartment listings, making time to see places within busy life schedules, hemorrhaging all of the money I’ve ever saved and searching for a moving company that didn’t want a month’s worth of rent just to move us to the other side of Bed Stuy I am officially exhausted. Done. So, how’d we even get here?
A little over a month ago my roommate and I were having casual conversations about moving. For her it was a more pressing because she was pretty much fed up with our less than sub-par landlord and our college like living situation. I on the other hand wasn’t quite ready, more so financially, but growing more intrigued by the thought of finally leaving my first Brooklyn apartment behind.
Then, one Sunday night as I snuggled in my bed with nightmares of Monday morning dancing in my head, the older gentleman who occupies the bedroom adjacent to mine started in on one of his random, yet frequent, rants. He complained very loudly in his thick, caribbean accent about the things he hates in America. I usually let his ranting slide even though it’s absolutely creepy and can be equated to those of a delusional subway prophet. But at 2:30 AM on a Sunday night when I had to be up for work the next day. No. I politely knocked on his door and asked him to bring it down. After sizing me up and looking at me as if I’d cursed his mother and homeland he shut his door and began ranting about me, wait, what?! How’d this escalate so quickly?
The next day I told my roommate and a few hours later I cracked open my first craigslist apartment search. With my newly fueled fire to leave this place for good and her already burning flame, we were pretty much set on finding something ASAP!
Over the month of April we experienced the excitement, disappointments, setbacks and down right pitfalls of apartment hunting in NYC - Janna chronicled it all amazingly here and here. We met a nice guy from Richmond, VA, also Janna’s hometown, who treated us more like old friends than clients and showed us the ropes of renting in this rat race.
Once all was said and done we landed a beautiful place in Bedstuy, not too far from our fave restaurant Peaches which was pretty much the deal or no deal maker for us in this search. Oh, don’t you dare judge!
Yesterday, we picked up the keys and hard copies of the lease. Today, we roll out of twelve twenty-one for good and finally make a real Brooklyn home in the place I’ve affectionately nicknamed the Big Girl Barbie Dream [Apartment].
The move though, for me, is a little bitter sweet. Way more sweet, but the tinge of bitterness is there because twelve twenty-one has been my home since I started this journey. I spent 6 months in my great grandfather’s house in Newark but in the winter of 2011 I moved here and never looked back.
I casually said to a good friend one evening that B2K is the reason I live here and he looked at me like I was nuts, well, they kind of are. I’ll explain.
The abbreviated version of the story is: in 7th grade I made a friend, Samantha, in a B2K online forum where we posted our fanfiction stories. Years later I’m a college graduate and we are still friends. I move to the NYC area and with her being native we made it a point to hang out as much as we could. I spent Thanksgiving 2010 with her and her mother in Queens. She’d told her mom about me not being able to stay in Jersey any longer so her mom offered me a bedroom in the house she owned in Brooklyn (twelve twenty-one). I ran it by my parents. They were happy I’d found a place to live so that I could keep pursuing my dreams and the rest is history.
Four years in this place, it’s been my home as I grew into adulthood. From 22 to 27 this house has seen many things, if these walls could talk the stories they would tell. My first year or so here was spent on a twin bed handed down by Samantha’s mom, my clothes piled in suitcases. I gradually acquired things I needed to make my place a livable sort of studio space. I saved and upgraded my bed, added a bookshelf, some art work, a TV taken from a friend, a pretty lamp. Once Janna moved in we threw summer house parties that lasted well into the morning with friends cooking on the grill and directions to byob as we supply the food. Twelve twenty-one, with it’s heating issues and little creatures that occasionally scare the bejesus out of us, was actually good to me. This house represented me being able to be independent enough to explore my dream city while not having to live in the real craziness of NYC rental properties. Before my friend’s mom finalized the sale to my current landlord she said “don’t raise the rent on my baby” and though he did, what I pay now is a fantasy compared to what’s really out there.
Well, the safety net is gone. And the move is real. I’m stareing a floor covered in things still wishing I could snap my fingers and make it all appear in the new apartment. As I pry myself out of my bed in this bedroom with its ceiling design and oversized window I’m just a little sad. No matter what, twelve twenty-one, you were a good friend to me. Thanks for letting me grow up here.
Love,
M.