Locard’s Principle

“Any action of any individual … cannot occur without leaving a mark.”
— Edmond Locard

Dear Apartment 220,

You caught me off-guard when we first met.

The August sun smiled through your windows, but I did not smile back. All at once I thought about all you were not: you were not the apartment with the coat closet, free Wi-Fi, or crystalline view of Mount Rainier I was promised. My heart sank. As my face dripped with disappointment and sweat from your lack of air conditioning, the leasing agent fumbled to find any word that was not “sorry,” recommended a local pizzeria, and walked out your front door, leaving me alone to deposit the parts and pieces of my life into you.

You avenged my discontentment with your hijinks. I did not appreciate your jammed window blinds that took three hours to roll down. Nor did I like when you shut off the fridge not once, not twice, but three times in our first week together, or the times when your washing machine overflowed with suds and your dishwasher stopped functioning. You must have had Munchausen syndrome or some strange crush on Dave the maintenance man.

This evening, the April sun smiles through your windows, and once again, I do not smile back. Tomorrow, two men and a truck will withdraw those parts and pieces and carry them to a shoebox apartment in South Lake Union. My heart sinks, this time not because of all you failed to be but because of all you were: the apartment that welcomed me on the blurry Sunday mornings I stumbled home from the Mix and cradled me every time a boy broke my heart. The leasing agent never needed to say sorry. I’m the one who needs to apologize for all the things I never told you until now.

Thank you for letting me punch those holes into your walls to hold the Panic! At the Disco poster I bought at the concert where I nearly scored front-row tickets and a high-five from Brendon Urie. Thank you for holding the Bastille poster I bought at the concert where I did score front-row tickets and a high-five from Dan Smith. Thank you for holding the picture of Seattle I bought at an art show three years ago when I had no idea I wouldn’t have to look at mere pictures of Seattle. Oh, and how could I forget — thank you for welcoming excessive numbers of Olafs and trinkets from tourist traps.

Thank you for being there for me that night — you remember, the night I failed to correctly decipher that IKEA manual and watched that godforsaken desk collapse like a house of cards. You didn’t deserve the subsequent string of expletives, rabid screaming, and guttural sobbing all indicative of optimal psychological functioning. Still, you held me on your vinyl floor as I fell apart thinking of the 2,600-mile gulf between everyone I knew and loved. I’ve told people over and over about the punctuating moment of my life — that transition from 205 to 206 — yet I am convinced you were, are, and will be the only one who truly gets it. That’s because you were the one who was there when I wrote the first sentence of the new paragraph.

Thank you for Tuesday morning. You woke up with me at 5 a.m. so I could catch the Sounder to my new job that would take me away from you. Six blaring alarms did not make you protest. Rather, you gave me a warm shower and dried the wrinkles out of my button-down. You made my coffee while I made breakfast. I wonder if you felt as proud of me as I felt of myself when I wrapped that lanyard around my neck and marched out the door.

Thank you for sheltering me from smoke and sickness and every peril in between.

Thank you for containing my joy when Joe Biden won the election.

Thank you for warming me after I stupidly hiked to and from Wright Park in a whiteout to build a snowman.

Thank you for being my home when I couldn’t be home for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Thank you for the million little things I am only noticing now.

Soon and very soon, I’ll flick your light switch and close that door one last time. But I neither need nor want to think about that this evening, so I won’t. Instead, I’ll open those stubborn blinds I’ve now tamed so we can share a sunset together. I’ll enjoy my tofu curry like I do every Friday night, and, per tradition, I’m not sharing. It’s another night together that just so happens to be our last.

Once I do have to let you go, I hope you can relax while Dave patches the holes that once held the posters and scrubs the scuffs from the floors that held me together. Perhaps he will leave some traces of me behind — a scar on your countertop, a dark spot on your carpet, a ding in the doorway — so you can think of me.

Whenever you do see those traces, I hope you won’t be angry. Knowing you, you won’t be. I know you’ll remember me fondly, resting in the knowledge that the man who unlocked your door the first time isn’t the same as the man who locked it for the last. As for me, I trust that you’ll let the sun smile through your windows for my replacement, and that you will love them as deeply and caringly as you loved me.

If you do, they’ll be the luckiest tenant in the world.

Love always,

Jonathan