Anyone who has lived in Lake Forest for the time being has seen the pure chaos of a usual “peaceful town” that took place for almost a year. Nothing seemed to be going in the right direction. There were no sidewalks, no roads, and at times, I really felt like I needed Apple Maps to simply get to Starbucks. Since I have a front row seat living in town, I watched the progress start to finish through my back door. So much so that at one point we had to find alternatives to simply get to our house with our back driveway being blocked off…this was a new low.

I truly felt for the businesses in town, who most definitely lost lots of customers. Any customer who wanted to get into town would have to park way farther than preferred, and some people didn’t know how to reach the store in the first place. At one point, my dad had to help the owner of Sweets carry his jugs of milk down the road because he could no longer wheel his shopping cart down the sidewalk. Other people were wondering if stores would even stay open with the lack of business they were receiving, which added up because from an outside perspective, uptown looked completely out of commission.

However, most impressively, each business pulled through. They seemed to have adapted pretty quickly. As I walked around town observing the moods of the store workers, I saw a genuine smile every single day, with a constant welcoming presence as if nothing was even going on. When I wasn’t dodging fences and avoiding potholes to get there, I’d appreciate the DIY temporary sidewalks made out of gravel and wooden boards, leading us to the entrance. These are the kinds of things I had to learn to appreciate. Trusting the process was something I most definitely advanced in during this time. 

Uptown Lake Forest sure knew how to turn a frown upside down. I can’t lie, I know lots of people who had some good laughs in town trying to find their way to stores. It was so new for all of us, we couldn’t help but laugh about it. There were some positives and negatives about the whole construction process, but all I know now is that it was all completely worth it. The air is cleaner again, the environment is alive, and most importantly, there is no more noise keeping the townspeople awake at night (I’m being dramatic).

With living life on the corner, it shocks me how far we’ve come. A few months ago, I wouldn’t have recognized the peaceful town that stood last year. Everything that I’ve witnessed, the clattering, the potholes, and my closed-off driveway, is all a distant memory now, and I’m not going to miss it! All that matters is that the beautiful, reinvented town stands now. Uptown is filled with all the people, dogs, and kids walking from school, just like it used to be. Yes, the construction bothered us all, but what it resulted in is a beautifully completed town, making it all worth it.