Her name is Bridgette and she used to live in this apartment.
I only know this because of what she has left behind. On the top shelf of my closet I discovered a black rectangle box. When you lift the lid you will find piles of photographs of a smiling woman who graduated from high school in 2004. I know this because these are her senior pictures.
On the bottom of the box are projects from a design school in Chicago. She got OK grades on them. She needs to learn how to mix color tones a bit better and if she can, she should be more attentive to matching edges of color values when she is trying to blend.
Underneath that is her diploma. She's from Missouri. That's what her diploma says. She graduated on May 16th, 2004 and her mascot was a Wildcat.
When you move in to a new place, it is easy to forget that you most likely aren't the first to live there.
Which makes me think of the people who will move in to Dave's and my old apartment. When they see the freshly painted walls and the polished hardwood floors and the newly installed toilet and a attentively scrubbed oven top will they even know that we existed before they moved in?
Will they know that two years ago, when Dave picked out that apartment(the first time he was going to live alone) that we watched a movie on the couch in the middle of the small living room in the dark surrounded by boxes because we were so tired from carrying heavy loads up and down the stairs?
Will they know that a year ago, when Dave and I got back from Hawaii, we framed photographs of our trip to remind us there was more out there than Chicago? And that we need to escape the city a little more often.
Will they know that we used to gossip about our days in the bedroom before we fell alseep or that on our three year anniversary, when I walked in the foyer, there were millions of baby Post-Its lined along the hallway saying "I Heart You" over and over? Or will they know the scuffs by the front door are from trying to get in our new couch when we didn't measure before hand and had to jam through the tight opening?
Will they know all the fights we got in to about wall colors or about who will take out the garbage or who have to sleep at a friend's house now that we are no longer together... now that we can't be together?
Will they know that two people lived together, loved together, and fell apart together in the apartment they are about to move in to?
No.
But I think of Bridgette. I think of how she left things behind to remind me that someone else did live there life here, in the new apartment I live in, and had so much happen to her. Maybe she met the love of her life and moved in with him or maybe lost her grandmother or maybe she got a great design job or maybe she dropped out of college to pursue another dream or maybe lost everything and moved back to Missouri in such a panic she had to leave some of her memories behind to at least let someone else... someone like me... know that she and her life has existed.
We never know these things, just like we never know the things hiding for us in the future. But sometimes, just sometimes, I wish people could know these things--the history they maybe walking in to or starting to live in. Because maybe they could learn from the pasts. Maybe the new couple moving in to our old place could scrounge through the house looking for hidden clues and say things to each other: "Honey, look at this crack. It totally looks like this is where Dave and Byron nailed in a framed photograph from their road trip from L.A. to San Fran. We should do that!" or "Honey, look, this is where Byron rested his chin--right on this window sill--when he would stare out the window towards the street before falling asleep wondering what he was supposed to do next now that he was sleeping alone again... we shouldn't do that... we should always talk about things so we are never resting our heads here... promise?"
Just like how I learned, from Bridgette, that you should just order your underwear from Victoria's Secret online so the guy that moves in after you(who still gets some of your old junk mail) won't get catalogs with naked women all over it.
We all can learn from that.