Thanks for the Ride, Old Friend

I honestly don't want to write this blog post. Normally, a first sentence like that one would lead to me writing about a pet or a family member that passed away or some other emotional occurrence that would warrant spending the time an energy writing about. However, I won't be writing about anything of the sort.

I'm writing about buying a new car.

Perhaps that's not entirely accurate. While I did buy a new car, and it looks pretty snazzy, I'm actually going to write about the most reliable car I've ever owned.



Back in 1999, my wife (who was my girlfriend at the time) bought the car you see above this paragraph because her Chrysler Le Baron decided to start to fall apart on her drive back to Delaware from my college graduation. Most people didn't put much faith in Ford Escorts (and if you asked those people about them now, they probably wouldn't have changed their minds), but it was affordable, available, and she liked it. After driving the car out of the dealership, my wife (and later I) would drive it for 11 years and 128,000 miles with it only breaking down twice.

This is the car that brought my wife from Delaware to Virginia before we were married. This is the car that carried her safely to her work until she decided to become a stay-at-home mother. It's the car that transported us on our honeymoon and on various other trips that we took together. It's the car I drove to Pennsylvania for Big Mike's XL party, and for Bash at the Boathouse VII. It's been my main mode of transportation for the past five years, including the six-and-a-half hour (at minimum) round trip drives every weekend for over a year to visit my family while we were living in different places.

It's a rock, a puzzle piece, something that's so obviously there that when it gets carted off, most likely this week, my world won't be quite right for awhile. It's very odd, honestly, to stop and realize some of the things that make my life "normal". The patterns that are established, based on the things that are constantly present and the order of events that occur at the same time in the same place, on an "average" day aren't things I consider on a regular basis.

But, it's just a car! I can hear people think. Well, of course. But, it's what the car represents that matters. By giving up this car, I recognize that I'm getting older, that things in my life are changing, that entropy occurs, and also that I have to give up something that's an integral part of 11 years of memories which will soon be irrevocably absent from my life.

I'm not grieving, per se, but there is a sense of loss I'm dealing with in this situation. My logical mind knows that the new car we just bought will provide new memories for me to savor once it's time to get another car. (My wife and I both realized the other day that my kids are going to be 13 and 16 when we replace this new car if everything goes right. These are the sort of thoughts that parents give themselves when they're not freaking out about how their kids are acting in the present. Why? I have no idea. Perhaps it's a hobby.) Yet, my emotional mind isn't ready to consider the future quite yet. Perhaps I'm mentally savoring everything I've done that's involved the car. Or perhaps I've simply grown attached to something that I've used a lot and done my best to take care of over the years. Whichever it is, it's time to start a new chapter in my life.

Here's to hoping it's as good as the last one.