In October 2021, Cheryl Kaplan and her husband moved to North Carolina. They were in their late 60s and ready to leave West Orange, N.J., where they had lived for 38 years, raising two daughters. “It was my idea,” Ms. Kaplan said. “I really wanted warm weather, and I wanted an older community where we didn’t have to travel out for clubs and swimming.”
The house they bought, in a development for homeowners 55 and older, seemed like a place where they could be happy for the rest of their lives.
The move, however, lasted only three days.
In one of their first mornings in the new home, the couple realized that their 38-year marriage was over. Ms. Kaplan told her husband she wanted to move out of the house they had just moved into.
“Leaving was something that I had wanted to do, and I was afraid of being alone,” she said. “I’m not afraid of being alone now.”
Ms. Kaplan reloaded the car with her personal belongings, got behind the wheel, and drove away on her own. “It was my decision,” she said. “I didn’t have to ask anybody, ‘Should I do this?’ In the past it would’ve been, ‘Let me ask somebody what I should do.’ But I didn’t ask anyone. I just did it.”
She wasted no time telling the people in her life about the change. “Driving back to New Jersey by myself, I’m calling everybody and telling them I was very excited about it, and people were very surprised. My kids were a little shocked.”
She drove to her younger daughter’s home in Fairfield, N.J., and stayed there while she figured out next steps. Ms. Kaplan, who had a career as a dietitian at a cancer center, had always been a homeowner but suddenly that wasn’t an option. “Prices were too high to purchase something,” she said.
So, for the first time in her life, she became a renter.
$3,608 | Verona, N.J.
Cheryl Kaplan, 71
Occupation: Retired oncology dietitian
On babysitting: Tuesday mornings at 8:30, Ms. Kaplan spends time with a granddaughter to give her daughter time to exercise and run errands. “I’ve become very close with my granddaughter,” she said. “I’m also close with my granddaughter in Michigan, too, but this one — she knows me. She’s only 15 months old, but she knows me very well.”
On working again: In October 2024, Ms. Kaplan decided to go back to work part time as a receptionist in a chiropractor’s office. “I love it,” she said. “I feel like I get to see people. It’s a little bit of using your brain. I had to learn the computer program and how to do the billing, but it’s just so nice to get out and do something like that again.”
Finding an apartment, however, wasn’t easy. It took about 10 tries to find the right place. When she first saw it she didn’t hesitate to put down a deposit. “It was a feeling when I walked in,” she said. “I think I gasped. It just came to me: This is the place. It was so bright and clean. Everything was modern looking.”
Annin Lofts, where Ms. Kaplan lives, was a manufacturing facility that was only recently converted into apartments. “The building is older but it’s all modernized,” she said. “I love having some antique pieces, mixing the old and the new.”
Her two-bedroom apartment is in the town of Verona, N.J., 20 miles outside of New York City and just a few miles from where she lived for decades. “The familiarity was also helpful for what I was going through,” Ms. Kaplan said. She has a daughter and friends nearby, and she didn’t have to find a new dentist or doctor, a new favorite supermarket or restaurant. “I like being close to the community that I always had — and I’ve made more of a community.”
She’s been in the apartment for more than three years and doesn’t see herself becoming a homeowner again any time soon. “I think I’m now too old to buy a house on my own, and it’s also still very expensive.”
She mostly likes life as a renter. When she needs a repair or maintenance she makes a call and forgets about it — an unfamiliar comfort to a lifelong homeowner. But there have also been challenges. “I’ve noticed how transient it can be as a renter,” she said. “You make a friend, you go out for coffee or you just take a little walk, and a couple months later they move. That part I don’t like.”
Her sense of ownership no longer comes from a deed but from complete freedom in her living space. With the exception of a few family heirlooms she planned to use, she was starting from scratch in thinking about how she wanted the apartment to look and feel.
“Red is my favorite color,” she said. “As a matter of fact, my kitchen table is red. And I love displaying my tchotchkes, my teacups, my teapots. I just look at things and I love it. I don’t remember having that. In the past, I would just say everything was utilitarian — it served a purpose. Was it pretty? Not necessarily.”
Ms. Kaplan’s apartment has played a big part in steadying her through this new stage in life, as have swimming and therapy and the continued practice of making decisions for herself.
“With my upbringing,” she said, “I was the good girl. Do what your mom tells you to do. Do what your father tells you to do. My grandparents lived downstairs — do what your grandparents tell you to do. I think I carried that a lot throughout my life. I was so concerned about being the good wife, making sure there was the right dinner and everything was in its place.”
She added, “Looking back, it wasn’t necessary, but I did it. So now that I’ve broken free from that, I can see how much more space there is.”
James Estrin is a photographer and writer who has been with The Times since 1992.
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